


a soft place to land

by Teroe



Series: daycare au [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daycare, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, a little bit of angst, and a whole lotta hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 17:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5751349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teroe/pseuds/Teroe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like this: the world's a little cruel and you're just looking for some place to crash. But if you could choose, you hope it's with her.</p><p>or</p><p>the daycare au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> started as a little response to a prompt and then it turned into something more. if you like what you see come on over to kokkoro.tumblr.com and yell at me.

You’re not even a quarter of the way through eight o’clock when you first spot her through the small window of your classroom door. It’s just her profile as she talks with your supervisor, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she does, and for a second you’re lost. Lost in the path of her nail curling around her ear and then dropping back down and out of sight. It’s only when you feel Temple collide against your leg that you look away. It allows you the necessary moments to prepare before the door opens, peeling the giggling toddler from your thigh while hurriedly making sure everything else is as it should be.

The door opens with a click and you’re more than sure you look like a mess, so you run a hand through your hair once, twice, watching as she takes a few moments to let things sink in. It’s a lot, you realize. The walls are covered in scribbled works of art and there’s a collection of bright-colored blocks and toys littered across tables and floor alike—little backpacks tucked messily into cubbyholes, dangling straps and tiny jacket sleeves blocking nametags and denying any sense of order you had established when the day started. And that’s not even counting the fifteen kids.

You remember Anya saying something about a new recruit. A med student from a few cities over who is apparently a friend of a friend (of a friend), or something like that. The details got lost somewhere in the chaos of these last few months, but what matters is things will get better now.

“Clarke,” she says, holding out her hand.

You clear your throat, hoping she doesn’t notice as you run a hand along your jeans to wipe off the sweat. “Lexa.”

Her grip is soft yet firm, but you’re caught in the quirk of her lips. There’s an almost mischievous lilt to it, and you feel it. That heavy, singular thud of your heart against your ribs, pushing as if to test the strength of your bones. It makes your knees weak.

She’s herded out the door a moment later, but not before Anya shoots you a curious look, and you give an almost nonexistent lift of your shoulders out of reflex, not really paying attention. You don’t have the opportunity to linger, however. Tiny hands tug at your wrists - curl around your fingers, and your eyes lower to dirty blonde hair, rosy cheeks, and a gap-tooth grin. It’s hard to stop the smile that tugs at your lips, so you don’t. You decide, after everything, you need this.

* * *

 

The kids are as curious about her as you. They ask questions, all wide eyed and full of wonder, and you know the feeling. A part of you joins them, silently in your way, as if waiting in the back of a theater for the show to start somehow relieves you from participating. Which is stupid, and you know it. You refuse to label whatever has been bubbling in your gut since Tuesday morning as anything but an innocent curiosity.

But you know what’s coming. You knew the first moment she stepped through that door, and you’re prepared now, feet firmly on the ground and head out of the clouds where it’s supposed to be. You have all the kids wearing stickers with their names on them, and just the thought of a new face has them buzzing out of their skin with energy. They sit on the checkered rug, a square for each, but there’s straying hands and barely contained giggles and a fair amount of squirming and at least two requests for a bathroom break. Maybe three. And by the time you’ve made about a half-a-dozen ‘cross your hearts’ to take them after Ms. Griffin arrives, you’re ready for a break.

The jitteriness isn’t something you’re used to. There has been a lethargy to the days ever since the incident, and despite your declarations to the contrary, letting go is harder than you thought it would be. A part of you doesn’t want to, and it makes the difference now all the more apparent, makes the restlessness to your hands an oddity you can’t seem to stop. They run through your hair again, pulling the wayward strands in your eyes back over your shoulder.

She arrives not moments later, and the entire room has eyes for her, but you’re too preoccupied with her to notice the flourish of insubordinations as fifteen different little voices proclaim, in some form or another, their greeting.

At least you don’t have to worry about her not feeling welcome.

You watch a quiet smile part her lips and she responds back good-naturedly, “Hi.” It’s soft, and a slight blush reddens her cheeks as she begins to unwind the scarf from around her neck, folding it over her arms. There’s a timidness to her you didn’t expect and when she looks to you, a little lost at what to do, you pull her up a chair, set it in front of the rug and fifteen pairs of eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind the inquisition,” you say, giving a slight tilt of your head towards the children. “We’re all excited to meet you, Clarke.”

Her smile widens as she sits herself down and you now notice the cool blue of her eyes. “Not at all.”

You pull up your own chair not too far away the moment hands shoot up into the air and the nervousness you saw earlier fades the second she has their attention. They ask her everything and nothing, and you can’t help but imagine that this must be what it’s like to sew—listening to her give tidbits of her life away for free. You weave them between the lines of your hands, her favorite color under your nails, unsure what you’d ever do with them, but not doing so feels like such a waste.

* * *

 

Clarke settles like the rain. In a rush and somewhat thunderous, but soft and refreshing in the aftermath. You never realized how strained and understaffed the daycare had been until you had the necessary help. Mornings are still quiet, you behind the desk glancing through your planner and Clarke hunched at the small kids table looking too big for it to be comfortable, breathing in the steam of her coffee. In your defense, you had offered to share. The desk was meant for more than one, but she just smiled around the lip of her styrofoam cup and shrugged. “It makes me feel alive.”

Alive, you remember, trying and failing to stop the quirk of your lips as you watch her stand with a grimace. She rubs her lower back and you look away when she turns to you, an accusing crease to her brow you pretend not to notice.

After one last sip of coffee she leaves and the room feels more empty than usual. It’s only been a few days and her presence has already made a place for itself here with you. Not that you mind. In fact you made it easy.

Practically cleared a spot for her yourself.

And when she returns lagging behind fourteen children, fingers clasped in Sam's tiny hand as they discuss the benefits of pink elephants, your heart aches.

Alive, you remember.

* * *

 

They decide to throw her a welcome party, which shouldn’t surprise you. They threw you one when you started six months ago as a seasonal temp Anya had “picked up off the streets.” Or at least that’s the story she likes to tell. Really you were a recent graduate and perhaps more than a little depressed, and Anya figured tossing you into a room with children was the best course of action considering the circumstances (you had the certification thanks to college and those summers spent as a lifeguard down at the beach) and you can’t in good conscious say she was wrong. At the time it was everything you needed. Enough to pull you up, even if not necessarily out, and in the end, it’s what makes you decide to attend Clarke’s.

It’s nothing big. The same downtown bar they took you, actually, and it doesn’t look any different. And yet, the first thing you notice amidst the fog is blonde hair and a husky laugh.

Clarke holds her glass with the tips of her fingers, around the rim, sipping clumsily from between her thumb and index finger, but when she sees you she smiles. “Partner!” she calls, a little too loudly over the live music. You suddenly need a drink.

Thankfully, Anya slips you one when you near the bar, a smirk on her face. “Didn’t think you were coming.”

You roll your eyes, but say hi, taking the glass from her with both hands. The first sip is smooth and you feel it settle warmly in the pit of your stomach. What attention you had garnered shifts soon enough, your small group staking claim to the far end of the bar. Anya talks loudly, laughs boisterously, and Clarke matches her enthusiasm. Challenges drink for drink, and to her credit, she manages to keep up for the better part of the hour, but you’ve never seen anyone succeed, and the way you see her swallowing roughly you know that won’t change tonight.

You watch her sway after the sixth shot (and who knows how many drinks before that), reaching out for the bar to steady herself, and after a moment she raises her hand in surrender. The others give a generous applause for her effort, and it spurs a smile and a clumsy bow, her hair falling into her eyes as she laughs.

She loses her footing again when she pushes off from the bar, and days spent having reckless children give you heart attacks makes you sit up straight in an instant. You’re too far away to do anything except watch, but the second she wanders over to plop down on the barstool next to you, giving your thigh a light tap, you breathe a little easier.

“You’re up,” she says, her slouch pitching to the side so that she has something to lean on. You’re not quite sure how to feel realizing that that something is you. “I’m throwing in the towel.”

Turning, you place your empty glass on the bar behind you. She doesn’t move even despite the slight jostle. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

“It’s the tequila.” She snorts. “God, I hate tequila.”

“Then there’s something to be said about choosing one’s battles carefully.” You watch the next challenger step up to the plate, that young girl Tris who works down the hall from you and Clarke. It keeps you from staring at something else. “I know my weaknesses.”

“Yeah? Good for you.” Her voice is getting softer, slurring together, and your head tilts toward her. “But sometimes you just gotta test the waters, you know? Pull on the strings a little bit. Maybe they weren’t weaknesses after all.”

“Are you sure that's not the alcohol talking?”

You don’t see her rolling her eyes, but you have a feeling she is. “I’m perfectly capable of being philosophical even when drunk.”

“It’s wishful thinking, then.”

“Wishes come true.” She hums low in her throat. “Sometimes.”

Clarke falls quiet after that, and you don’t know she’s asleep until you look. And you realize a little too late that it’s the worst decision you’ve made all night. Her hair is wild, thrown all to one side so you can see her cheek smushed against your shoulder. Every breath she takes stirs the strands across her face, and the longer you stare, the harder it is to look away. You’re not sure you want to.

“Why don’t you take the champ home.”

You look up to see Anya smiling at you, leaning against the bar, and it’s that smug curl of a smile she uses when she knows something you don’t. “She lives right off of Hazel, not far from you. Heights apartments. Can’t miss it.”

You can’t help taking one more glance at Clarke. It lasts longer than you expect. “Did she have a jacket?”

Anya points a thumb over her shoulder, but sighs a second later and turns around. She’s back in a few, tossing Clarke’s jacket in your lap. “Now get, you guys are making me sick.”

It’s a second or two before you try anything, the familiarity of it all making you content to sit there with her leaning against you. But you know the risk in letting this moment linger. You can feel it in the way you look at her, in that sweetly coated nostalgia that seeps into your bones (rests behind your eyes like rose colored lenses) and memories of a different face and a different time. Of something finite and all too fragile.

“Clarke.”

She groans, pushing her face into your shoulder. You don’t let her fall back asleep, providing support as you stand so she doesn’t topple over. It wakes her up and you help her into her jacket.

“I’m tired,” she says, slipping her arms into the sleeves.

You nod, pulling the collar up to cover her neck and then zipping it closed. “I know.”

“I hate tequila.”

“I know.”

The bar has filled out since you arrived and it being just past one a.m. means there is a new slew of late night patrons. They file through for their first drinks, for a little bit of fun and relaxation on this sunday morning, but you coax Clarke from her stool, past the crowded tables and dance-floor towards the door.

It’s brisk, the late November air causing your shoulders to scrunch up towards your ears, your breath in clouds. Clarke’s face is half visible from where she’s buried it under her collar, brows furrowed as if the temperature is a personal attack against her. She doesn’t move, three steps away from the entrance, and late night stragglers maneuver around her to enter.

She takes a step after a man bumps into her and you wait until she’s by your side before you start back up again. You stick close, your shoulder brushing with hers as an excuse to know where she is without looking. But you do anyway.

(the street lamps flicker yellow, spots of light between stretches of darkness, and you’d swear she glows in spite of them)

Your car is just around the corner, and you open the door for her. She stumbles inside. “Seatbelt,” you say before closing the door and making your way around to the driver’s side, digging the keys from your pocket.

The car starts with a rumble once you’re both buckled in, and you turn the heat on high. It’s a rather quiet ride, the radio soft and nonexistent, and Clarke has fallen back under with her head propped against the window. She sinks further into her woolen jacket with every passing second and by the time you pull up beside the sidewalk in front of Ark Heights apartments, cutting off the ignition, her nose is gone and her closed eyes are barely visible through the strands of her hair.

“Clarke.”

She groans, curling deeper into the passenger seat, so you try again. “Clarke.”

You lean across the console to unbuckle her seatbelt, and then you’re out of your seat, around the car, and urging her up. She does so with minimal complaining, mostly because you’re doing half of the work, and she’s walking soon enough.

It takes her a moment to remember the code for the main door, and you’re almost positive that’s the last of the obstacles this evening has in store for you, but it isn’t until you’re both standing in front of her apartment, Clarke digging through her pocket for her key, that you realize that to be false.

“Sorry,” Clarke says, voice rough and sleepy, and it’s the first coherent word she’s managed since the bar. She switches her attention to the other pocket, pulls out her phone and a few crumpled pieces of paper—and then stuffs them back in.

“Sorry,” she says again, running a hand through her hair and pushing it back from her eyes. You’re almost positive she’s making a point to avoid looking at you and it leaves you quiet and awkward in the hall beside her. “I’m not usually… I’m sorry, I should’ve—”

It’s the alcohol probably, and it’s almost as if you can taste the repercussions in your mouth, like regret down the back of your throat. You know what it’s like, and the ‘been there, done that’ feeling this situation ignites has you wanting to scrub your mouth clean, ridding yourself of the taste of alcohol still clinging to the back of your tongue. But if the last year and a half has taught you anything, the alcohol was never the problem.

For a while, drowning was simply the easiest thing to do.

Your hands clench and unclench in your pockets as you struggle to find the right words. Costia had always called you straight-forward and stubborn to a fault, stepping on people’s toes not necessarily out of malice, but because you had been taught that things in life weren’t offered freely. They were fought for. With tooth and nail and every fiber of being. Here with Clarke, however, you can’t help but wonder where all that fight had gone. “Can I call anyone for you?”

Clarke shakes her head, foregoing the search for her wayward key in favor of knocking. Loudly. It’s her last resort, you can see it in her eyes, and there’s no hiding the crestfallen look that spreads across her face when the silence stretches. She takes out her phone again, the light from the screen highlighting the curve of her cheeks in the dim hall, and an idea worms into your head before you can stop it.

You think of your apartment, of the box full of memories still sitting on the coffee table, the empty picture frames, and the sad looking plants you need to water. But there’s a clean bed, a comfortable couch, and enough blankets to bury oneself in twice over.

“Clarke?”

The voice you hear isn’t yours. It’s tired, laced with sleep, and the smile on Clarke’s face is so relieved. “Raven.”

The girl blinks twice, observing you from the doorway before turning back to Clarke. “What are you doing? It’s almost—” Raven squints down at her imaginary watch. “—fuck all in the morning for pete’s sake.”

“My key,” Clarke begins, and Raven rolls her eyes.

She opens the door wider all the same. “Yeah, yeah, just get your ass in here.”

Clarke lets out a sigh of relief, moving from your side. She makes it two steps before turning back around, searching for your eyes. She takes a hold of your sleeve, pinching the fabric gently between her thumb and index finger, and gives a slight tug. “Thanks.”

You nod, once, dredging up every ounce of self-discipline left in your body to force yourself not to look away, sheepish. You manage somehow. “It’s not a problem.”

Her arm drops back to her side, satisfied with your response, and there’s that curl to the corner of her lips again, and you’re torn between the softness in her eyes and the warmth in her smile and you know you’re staring.

It’s a quiet ride home.

* * *

 

Clarke reminds you of her—of Costia—and you try not to let it bother you, but it does. Right there in your gut like you forgot to put something back after it was taken out and the hole that remains just _aches_. But you find yourself realizing, at least it's something.

She’s all tiny smiles and soft wit, eager and gentle, and it doesn’t surprise you that Clarke sprouts a second shadow by the end of her first week. She’s a tiny thing named Jenna, four and a quarter years old and proud of it. You’ve known her since before you officially started, way back when you volunteered during down times in college, and she’s always been somewhat shy around everyone except Temple.

You’d call it a betrayal if you were sure Anya wouldn’t tease you about it. She always said you grew attached too fast and too easily and watching Clarke squeeze herself into one of those little chairs, Jenna nearly tucked into her side with how close the girl has pulled her seat, it’s not much of a mystery as to why. There’s a constant stream of giggles, and you want to bottle the sound up for winter, store it in the cupboard of your apartment for when the cold sets in and you’re feeling a little worse for wear.

“Again,” Jenna manages between bits of laughter and Clarke smiles, the tip of her tongue peeking through her lips as she concentrates on a sheet of paper among dozens spread out over the table. Clarke holds the crayon in her left hand a little awkwardly, but the line she makes is smooth, stretching in an arc, and you have no idea what’s happening other than that it’s captivating to watch. Lines merge into contours, contours into shapes, shapes into life, and soon there’s oceans spilling across the table, deep blue and encompassing.

By now, Clarke has garnered an audience, pulled the last of the stragglers from the rug after story-time and you’re left putting away books alone with a smile tugging at the corner of your lips. You catch her glancing your way every so often, her brow quirked, asking you with her eyes to get your butt over here. For some reason you find yourself feigning ignorance, pointing to the book in your hand and then the bookshelf a few feet away. She shakes her head, motioning again with a jerk of her chin.

You shrug innocently and she rolls her eyes. You wonder if it’s obvious how you’re looking at her. If everyone in the room can see it and you’re just too preoccupied with the fall to notice. You find yourself sighing and it’s a whole body affair. Starts in the tips of your fingers, itching for something as they weave through your hair. Then it’s in through your nose and out your mouth, stuttering only for a moment in your throat as you swallow before it crawls its way through your chest, and what is left of the remains trickles to your toes.

The movement catches Clarke’s attention, pulls it from the kids grabbing for crayons and markers for just a moment before they reel her back. “Roger, buddy, crayon out of your mouth, please.”

Without getting up from the chair, you roll yourself those few feet towards the bookshelf, putting away the book in your hand as well as the others left abandoned on the shelves. There’s no rhyme or reason to it and you briefly consider alphabetizing. For the fun of it, of course, not because you’re trying to avoid the inevitable. That would be stupid.

(You’re known to do stupid things. Stupid, uncalculated, risky things, when in love. But you’re not in love. That would be stupid)

“Lexa?”

It’s Clarke. You know without looking and not just by her voice, but by the way your heart stumbles, falls, and starts back up again.

(You’re still trying to fall out of love, after all)

* * *

 

“For the love of god, Lexa, stay home.”

You readjust the phone between your cheek and shoulder, clearing your throat, and it’s quite possibly the grossest thing you’ve heard since the day Jack threw up all over the building blocks.

“I’m-”

“If you finish that sentence _I’m_ going to kill you.” Your mouth clamps shut, and Anya’s sigh is loud through the receiver. “Clarke will be fine. She’s got things under control, there’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Swallowing hurts and you make a face you’re glad Anya can’t see. “Check in on her, please?” Your voice sounds strained, hoarse beyond recognition and barely there, and maybe Anya is right.

Luckily for you, Anya is able to piece together the remnants of your voice, and the laugh that follows is forced. “Yeah, sure.” There’s a pause, and you can make out the sound of papers shuffling. “You’re going to relax now right?”

You nod, but it takes you a moment to realize you’re still on the phone, so you croak out a, “yeah.”

“Good.” Another pause. “I’ll see you soon. Call me if you need anything.”

“Yeah.”

The dial tone is the only signifier the call has ended and your phone slips from between your shoulder and cheek, dropping somewhere on the cushions when you turn over to huddle against the back of the couch. Your hands retreat into the sleeves of your sweatshirt, that old one you got way back when for lifeguarding, and it’s faded and worn beyond belief, but soft and familiar.

You wake up sometime around four in the afternoon to go hack up a lung in the bathroom. It makes you feel better, until you’re halfway down the hall after leaving and have to sit down on the floor to make the room stop spinning. There’s not that much space to stretch, legs bent, bare feet touching the opposite wall, and you wonder why you never put on socks.

It seems like forever as you sit there watching your toes when a knock on the door draws your attention away. The internal debate that wages in your mind eventually sides in favor of curiosity, and you haul yourself to your feet, the room no longer spinning. In your shuffle to the door, however, you bump into the table, clip the side with your hip, and you’re not sure how that causes a fit of coughing but it does.

You’re teary eyed and out of breath when you open the door, and you’re not offered much reprieve. You see blue, and you’re quite sure it’s the prettiest blue you’ve ever seen.

“Hi, I…” Clarke looks almost shocked to see you, which is odd because you live here, and it would be funny if you weren’t somewhat mortified. “Anya sent me.”

It takes a second for it to click she’s come right after work. The messenger bag you’ve seen her with is slung over her shoulder, and a plastic bag of things dangles from her left hand. Her hair is a little windswept, cheeks red from the cold and you probably should say hi back, but when you open your mouth nothing comes out. You’re tired as all hell and feel like shit and the heat that rushes to your cheeks and prickles up the back of your neck makes your sweatshirt suddenly suffocating.

“This is for you. From Anya.” It’s a little folded piece of paper and you take it from her without touching her hands. She steps past you - not particularly rudely, but there’s a purpose in her movements as she sets things down in your kitchen, and you take the opportunity to open the note while she’s busy.

In Anya’s messy scrawl it says: _Check in on her yourself._

The paper crumples in your hand.

“You don’t have to.” The words trickle out and the effort scratches at the back of your throat. It feels like a few words too many.

“I know.” She doesn’t look at you, opening cupboards here and there, but she doesn’t find what she’s looking for and turns to you. “Do you have a kettle?”

You shake your head.

“A pot?”

That you do have and you point at the cabinet to the right of the sink. You hear a small, punctuated ‘aha!’ as Clarke pulls out one of your cooking pots. She fills it with water from the faucet and sets it on the stove.

You watch her fiddle with the knobs and you have trouble remembering the last time someone besides Anya stopped by. It makes your insides lurch at the difference it makes, how much more of a home it seems when there’s someone else to share it with. That was the purpose of it, after all. When you moved in you had every intention of sharing it—and that’s exactly what you did. For a time, at least.

It feels too real, too close to home, and you have half a mind to believe you’re still sitting in the hallway completely out of it. But Clarke glances at you over her shoulder, catches your attention like a hook, and you stiffen, swallowing roughly. The pain you can’t imagine.

“The kids missed you.” She looks at you this time, holds your eyes to make sure you're listening, before turning back to the water. “They kept asking where you were.”

A thin cloud of steam drifts slowly upwards, and this little ghost of a smile tilts your lips without you realizing. You finally get yourself to move, wandering over to the kitchen island and slip into one of the chairs.

Your head is heavy, and you rest it in your hands. “I don’t get sick,” you manage, and your voice is tires over a gravel road.

“Well, obviously that’s no longer true,” Clarke says, smirking. “And the last thing we want is to make a liar out of you. The kids would be devastated.”

You grunt, lifting your shoulders in what’s meant to be a shrug, but your lungs have other ideas, and your whole body shakes with coughs.

Clarke lets out a hum, removing the pot from the stove. She searches blindly for a mug and finds one without your help. Not that you could have offered any to begin with, which you guess is probably Clarke’s way of proving a point. The plastic bag resting on your counter crinkles as she rummages through it, pulling out a box of tea and what looks to be some medicine and a jar of honey.

It’s basically chemistry 101 as Clarke pours the water into the mug, and then digs through the box for the right bag and lowers it into the water. She works her way through your kitchen as it steeps, returning every so often between finding the spoons and napkins to lift the string and allow the tea to breathe. The honey is last, a large spoonful that Clarke lets sit in the mug when she slides the cup over to you.

She props her elbow on the island, chin in the palm of her hand. “It’s good, trust me. I’m a doctor.”

You quirk a brow and she grins at you, waiting. The first sip you take is a little sweet, the honey thick and prevalent, coating the back of your tongue. It erases a lot of the bitterness, sooths the worst of the pain you’ve been experiencing for the past twenty-four hours to a much more tolerable level. The second sip makes you feel warm.

“Family recipe,” Clarke says after a bit and you look up from the cup cradled in your hands. “I’d get strep like clockwork when I was young. Hopefully it still does the job?”

You swallow just to be sure. “It does.”

“Good.” She’s reminiscing and you know the exact moment she gets lost in it. Her eyes lose focus, staring blankly at the surface of the island as if the patterns in the marble tell a story. You're not sure how to cut the silence, or if you should at all, but she pulls herself out of it with a small shake of her head.

A sigh escapes when she straightens, pushing off from the island and returning to the counter gathering the mess she’s made as she goes. It’s a stranded honey cap here and a wayward teabag there, and it takes her all of a few seconds to fix. She lingers, organizing them on your counter—tea, honey, medicine, and then from the bag a few bottles of water, cough drops, and what you believe is a singular can of chicken soup.

You don’t need it. You’ve survived without her help before, but voicing that is the last thing you want to do. You’ll take whatever she’s willing to give.

“Thank you.”

She looks back to you. “You're welcome.” She picks up her bag from the chair after everything is in place. Watching her, you notice she never actually took off her jacket. “The sooner you’re back on the job the better.”

“Did they give you trouble?” You know they’re good kids, all of them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a handful even on the best of days.

“No. No, I—” Her eyes dart away, fingers curling around the strap of her bag. “The kids were fine. Rambunctious, but fine. It’s… It’ll be nice having you back, that’s all.”

“It’s tough work,” you say. Your voice crumbles around the o and the sound earns you a sympathetic smile.

“More than I thought.” She readjusts the bag over her shoulder. “I should go.”

Nodding, you move to stand, hands braced on the counter as you push yourself up from your seat. You feel a little shaky, and it must show in your movements somehow because Clarke is quick to stop you.

“I can make it to the door myself, thanks.” You feel her hand on your back, a light pressure between your shoulder-blades. “Do you want some help over to the couch?”

You give a definitive shake of your head, coughing into your elbow, and Clarke rubs your back. “Sure you don’t, tough girl,” she mutters, but her touch disappears after one last pat, and you’re both grateful and somewhat disappointed. “I’ll see you around then?”

There’s a lump in your throat and you swallow around it. “Yes.”

Clarke turns, her flats tapping lightly across the floor, soft and short, and your eyes trail after her. She makes it to the door, throws you a look over her shoulder. You stare back at her, eyebrow quirked, lips tilted, but your body leans heavily against the island and you sense the beginning of an itch tickling your throat. You have a feeling she knows somehow.

She gives you the eye, shifting to point a finger in the direction of the living room. “Butt. Couch. Now.”

You don’t know how long you spend staring at the door after she’s gone. The whole thing leaves you a little dazed and a lot confused, mind swirling, and you stumble over to the the couch, peeling off your sweatshirt as you go. You feel hot—cheeks flushed, neck damp, and hands sweating—and the draft through your apartment does nothing. You collapse on the cushions in a mess, sweatshirt dangling from your fingers over the side of the couch as you remind yourself how to breathe.

* * *

 

You’re out for another two days—four if you count the weekend—and stepping through those doors at seven in the morning on a Wednesday feels like a sigh. Like all the extra weight that had built up like a second skin crumbles off with every step. You miss it, that purpose and responsibility, more than you can articulate. It’s a mix of dependency and belonging, you realize; a little bit of the past you cling to for nostalgia’s sake because you can. You’re allowed weakness here, and only here. There are simply too many memories to forget and you wouldn’t dare try.

Everything is the way you left it. Books, toys, all of it, and it’s like you were never gone. But there are instances, new things you don’t quite remember and they’re so unmistakably Clarke that it sends this little pang through your chest. She’s left things behind. Her scarf, a pair of gloves, the medical notes she studies during lunch, and you see her art scattered among the collection growing along the walls.

And then there’s the card. The card tucked inside an envelope with your name on it in the middle of your desk. It takes you minutes to open it and even longer to put it down. There’s fifteen distinct letters that somehow piece together to form “Welcome Back Lexa!” along with an elaborate and decorative exclamation point. Fifteen little names fill the excess space and in the bottom right corner, a disclaimer.

_With help, from Clarke._

Your breath escapes slowly, slips between your fingers when you press your knuckles against your lips. You’re not sure what you’re trying to hide, or if that tremble to the corner of your mouth and the sudden prickling behind your eyes is something you should be worried about.

(It’s not, but you think you should be)

Pulling yourself back together takes a second. Your hand drops back to your side and you inhale shakily, staring up at the florescent lights until you’re sure each and every piece of you fits back into place.

You wonder how long it will last.

* * *

 

The first real snow comes the day before Christmas break and it arrives in thick gusts in the dead of night, settles heavy over the earth by the time the sun rises behind grey clouds. All that is left when you awake are the flurries after the storm.

Roads are passable at least, calm and quiet besides the occasional plow, but the snow builds well into late morning and half the kids are missing as a result. Steady, it grows plainly just outside your classroom window, packs together in heaps with such misleading slowness that it captures your attention more than once.

You’re not the only one taken by it, and after a certain point you’re more captured by the look in Clarke’s eyes than the spectacle itself. You catch her staring out the window more than once, the white light sparkling like stars in the blue of her eyes.

The day won’t last much longer. Anya’s already sent out the message concerning the early closing, and any semblance of structure fell with it. You don't fight it, you know too well the fickleness of children, and soon you’ve enlisted Clarke’s eager help in dressing the kids, guiding little arms into tiny sleeves, zipping jackets, and tucking hair and ears beneath woolen caps.

When you make it outside, there’s nothing left of playground behind the daycare besides the bits of color that peek through the thick blanket of snow. The kids are off before you get the chance to tell them to be safe and your words trail off the tip of your tongue, unheeded. You watch them like a hawk from your spot at the edge of the playground, Clarke standing beside you with her hands stuffed into her pockets, smiling in spite of the cold you know she doesn’t like.

She breathes out dramatically a few minutes later. “You’re like a worried mother hen.”

You quirk a brow, watching Jenna and Temple attempt to climb up the slide. “It’s nothing you can prove.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, but her mouth tilts in an almost smile. It’s when your instincts kick in at the sight of Temple tripping up the slide and you take an unconscious step forward that Clarke lets out a snort. Temple brushes off the fall like a champ and is back up before you have a chance to see if she’s okay.

“As if it’s something I need to prove,” Clarke mutters, throwing you a quick look through her lashes and your jaw loosens a fraction. You watch her wander out towards the playground, dawdling for reasons you can’t put a finger on, before you attempt a response.

“Mockery isn’t—” You duck just in time and the splatter of the snowball against the side of the building is drowned out by the collective gasp that spreads through the children. Their mouths hang open, the lot of them stock still and wide eyed, waiting to see the result of such treachery. But your eyes center on Clarke, on the dangerous curl of her lips and her rosy cheeks, and for the briefest moment the only option you see is pleading mercy.

To your credit, you don’t. Instead, a thrill surges through you when you charge after her and chaos erupts. Clarke’s squeal echoes, her boots crunching through half a foot of snow as she bolts for the cover of the jungle gym, and those in her favor stumble after her, laughs loud and wild

Clarke’s slower than you and despite the snow, you close in quickly. When you reach out the tips of your fingers brush the back of her jacket and all it takes is another two strides for your arms to wrap around her, her laugh filling your ears when you pull her back and the momentum takes the both of you to the ground. It's a mess of limbs, really, and you’re not sure what to do now that you have her, but she’s solid against you, her chest heaving, and you feel every move she makes.

She pushes against you halfheartedly, tiny giggles bubbling from her lips as she tries to catch her breath, and to say you’re star-struck is a gross understatement. Your hands are tingly, clasped behind her waist as they are. Blaming it on the cold is easy, but the way your heart stutters, your breath catching high in your throat, you know that to be a lie.  

The feeling is fleeting, however, and when your mind registers it she’s already gone, taking advantage of your stupor to scramble from the hold of your arms. You clamber back to your feet as fast as you can, clearing the clumps of snow from your face and pushing the hair from your eyes.

The odds are against you. There’s no cover, your army opting for uncoordinated and haphazard attacks. Measly snowballs that barely make their mark let alone do damage, but their energy is endless, and your heart pounds against the inside of your chest, breath in clouds.

You catch glimpses of blonde hair peeking from behind the slide, hear a gurgle of giggles that travel across the otherwise quiet air. You consider a frontal assault, charging in head first, but you decide that really isn’t your style as you jerk out of the way of another one of Clarke’s frozen, and admittedly well-aimed, projectiles.

It’s a distraction, and you learn quickly there’s no time to plan. In the heat of battle, things shift and change like the tide, and the sight that evolves in front of you has you attempting to blink the disbelief from your eyes. The first collision knocks you a step backwards, your right foot sinking deep and locking you place. The second and third come in quick succession, with laughter as they cling like dead weights to your arms and you sink to a knee. The fourth is a little late, but you wait for it. Wait for little arms to lock themselves around your neck before falling back all on your own, dragging the kids with you in your best gallant demise.

You lay there, the snow creeping into the spaces around your neck, for however long it takes for the air to fill your lungs again. It's warm and cold all at once, the weight heavy and secure. Knobby knees dig into your kidneys, tiny elbows nudge your spleen, and you don’t want to move. But after a moment you do, dragging yourself to your feet and the kids along with you just to hear their shrieks of laughter renew.

They hang on and you only make it a few steps, legs already wobbling, when the rest realize what they’re missing and rush over. This time you don’t have to fake it, toppling over into the snow with a loud ‘oomph,’ the air your lungs so painstakingly gathered leaving in a rush, and amongst it all you hear Clarke’s laugh.

It’s almost stupid how easily you can pick it apart in a crowd.

“Alright guys, I think she surrenders.” They don’t move, almost as tired as you, and she tries again. “Up, up. You’ve all got five minutes before it's back inside.”

She helps each of them up, sends them off with a soft pat on their back. Little Temple is last, her arms still clasped around your neck and her dirty blonde hair has somehow found it's way into your mouth. It’s when the little girl looks up from the crook of your neck to find Jenna that she accepts Clarke’s help, patient as she waits to be put down before stumbling through the snow after her friend.

After all is said and done, Clarke smiles down at you, amused, before offering you her hand. She must misjudge the amount of work it takes to pull you up, struggling against gravity until one hearty tug has you up and falling into her. The snow races down the back of your shirt, and you shiver, pulling away slightly to shake off the excess from your hair.

“Who knew you fall easily,” she says, dusting the snow from your shoulders.

You almost begin to argue, the fact that it took seven of them to take you down on the tip of your tongue. But when you look up to see the snowflakes caught in her eyelashes, scattered through her hair, there is only one thing on your mind.

You want to kiss her.

It comes all of a sudden and you don’t know what to make of it, don’t know how to tell her that you want to get lost in her laugh, feel her smile against your lips, or hold her hand until your palms begin to sweat. You don’t fall easily, you fall hard and irrevocably. She just makes it easy for you.

But you don’t kiss her. You get lost in her eyes, the small slope to her nose, flushed cheeks and bluing lips, and she observes you curiously. As if she expects to find something there besides what you believe to be obvious. Or maybe that’s just you, and she’s just oblivious.

“C’mon, tough girl.” She steps past you then, nudging you with her shoulder as she goes. “Another half an hour and it’s smooth sailing.”

Clarke lets you herd up the children and you make sure everyone’s going in with exactly what they had going out as she does one last lap around the playground to find any stragglers. When you see her nod, giving you a thumbs up, you lead the group inside.

Their footsteps echo in the hall behind you, off kilter and impossible to predict, but it sounds like music to you and you love it. You glance over your shoulder, watching all of your kids waddle behind you swathed in their snow gear, and the straight line you started out with has already begun to show signs of strain. There’s Jenna side by side with Temple, their hands swinging between them, and Roger skipping across the floor. There’s Jack mirroring his steps as Sam watches the lights go by, and Evie and Eric neck and neck behind you, the competitive little devils that they are.

You’ll miss them, but you never really had any doubt. It's more of a premonition that settles with the graying day. You’ll live, you know that, but that doesn’t change the fact that the place you’ve found here is more of a home than your apartment, and saying your goodbyes to the kids one by one until it's just you and Clarke sifting through the remains of your room is a certain kind of bittersweet. You don’t know if this is an excuse to stay or if you’re both just avoiding driving home in the snow. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

Clarke takes a seat beside you in one of the small chairs, a grin on her face like she’s finally won some kind of bet. “Have any plans?”

“The usual,” you say, flipping through the pages of your planner. Outside the snow continues to fall. “Visit Anya’s. Sort out the upcoming year. It never really changes.”

Clarke rests her chin in the palm of her hand. “Do you want it to?”

You shrug. “No,” and it's the truth, but you pause, turning the pen around in your hand thoughtfully before adding, “...and yes. It’s difficult to explain.”

Her knee bumps against yours when she turns more towards you, and you feel somewhat self-conscious, avoiding her eyes. Sometimes it’s almost as if they see through you—around you, past you—and you’re left stuck in the entirety of her, trying to pick apart the pieces of you still caught and hanging. But you get lost instead. You always get lost in her.

“I understand,” she says and you watch her eyes. Soft and clear and you know she means it. “I’ve learned there’s a fine line between being stuck and being comfortable. But sometimes figuring it out is worth the risk, right?” She looks away. “I wouldn't be here if it weren’t for that.”

“Then maybe it's true.” You glance down at her lips and it’s just a moment—just a moment suspended before you, so you take it. Hesitantly. Stupidly.

(but you’re in love with her, that’s pretty clear)

You half expect her to pull away when you lean in, your fingertips brushing her cheek, too skittish to actually hold. You don’t think she wants to be, but you hear the small breath she takes before your lips meet and it sounds like the last gulp of air before sinking. Or the first after nearly drowning.

It’s awkward from where you sit, twisting towards her in your too small seat to get as much as she willing to give, and it’s tentative. But you feel her, the pressure of her mouth against yours when she pushes forward, capturing your bottom lip between hers and swallowing your silent gasp, and your fingers thread through the soft hair just below her ear.

She’s encompassing and it leaves you dizzy, mind blank and yet full all at once, and you draw back slightly to gather yourself back together, her nose cold and still touching yours. But you don’t dare open your eyes, and the silences crawls into your ears to sit. So you shift your head, trailing your nose across hers, and lean back in.

It’s a ghost of a touch, just enough for you to feel the softness of her lips and then it's gone. It takes you too long to realize she’s pulled away.

She sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

The words force your eyes open and she’s closer than you expect. Her eyes are closed, and the small wrinkle to her brow pinches her face. She looks as unsure as you feel, but when she gathers the necessary courage, her eyes are true.

And maybe a little sad. “I don’t—” Your heart drops, but you finally notice the hand near your waist when it curls into your shirt. It holds you there, keeps you from escaping before things have a chance to blow up in your face. But in all honesty, you stay because there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. “I don’t know if I’m ready—” She swallows. “—for something like this. I haven’t, not since—”

She finally looks away and you settle your hands in your lap. She still hasn’t let you go. Selfishly, you don’t want her to, but you nod your understanding, and her relief is clear.

“I like you,” she says softly and your heart flutters. “And I don’t want to ruin this.”

There’s something she’s not able to tell you. You can tell because love lives in you like a star, burning long after the light goes out. Letting go had never been your strong suit, no matter how hard you tried, and you’ve learned that kind of feeling leaves a mark. But you’ve also learned that maybe letting go doesn’t mean you have to forget.

Clarke stands without another word, and you watch her as she shuffles about the room, plucking her coat from where she left it to dry out on the back of a chair. Her scarf is next and she drapes it loosely around her neck. She scoops up her keys and bag from your desk, slings the latter over her shoulder.

“I’ll see you later?” she asks.

You can only hope. “Be safe.”

* * *

 

 

 _Later_ comes sooner than you anticipate—at some god awful hour in the morning two days after christmas when a loud knock on your apartment door pulls you from the warmth of your bed. You weren’t sure what you were expecting in your hazy trudge to the door, but the sight of Clarke standing just outside in the hall is exactly what you need to chase away the last of the grogginess lingering behind your eyes.

“Lex...” The second syllable of your name dies on Clarke’s tongue just as it begins, lost in the slur of her lips. Her eyes are glossy, the smell of alcohol heavy on her breath, and you let her in without so much as a second thought.

“Your key,” you begin, and she laughs as she stumbles into you, grip light on the fabric of your sleeve. It’s the only thing besides you that keeps her standing in the small foyer of your apartment.

Her nose nudges into your shoulder, and you can hear the subtle breath she takes. “I lost it,” she mumbles before going quiet. For a moment you’re sure she’s asleep standing there with her face pressed into you. Until you start to move, your bare feet growing cold against the hardwood, and she sticks close to you, groggily following warmth.

“Where’s Raven?” Your hand rests gently just above her hip, below the dip of her ribs, and you wonder when it got there. “Clarke.”

“Hmm?”

“Raven.”

There’s a pause, and realization sinks in slowly. “Out.”

“Would you like to stay?”

She nods. “Please.”

Your thumb brushes lazily back and forth over her jacket, and it would be worrisome if you weren’t almost positive that she couldn’t feel it anyway. Over your shoulder, the apartment is cast in the pale blue of early morning. Like the ocean just before dawn—if not for the clock on the microwave that reads 4:17 in neon red. Your planner and papers are still scattered over the couch and coffee table, so after a moment you pull back fully and watch Clarke’s eyes flutter open and close. It’s glimpses of star-speckled blue, and your hand removes itself from her hip, curls around her fingers, and pulls.

“Come on.”

She shirks off her jacket somewhere between the table and the couch and it misses the arm entirely, crumpling to the floor in a heap as she clumsily reaches out for you again. Her small heels are next, and it’s more a series of falls as she struggles to step out of them without letting go of your hand. You’re halfway down the hall when she kicks the last one off and the soft pat of her bare feet matches yours.

The chill that sneaks into your small room settles like ghosts in your absence, filling to the far corners without taking up space. There’s no hiding the effect it has, and every breeze through the open window has you fighting off the shiver that travels up your spine.

Your bed is a mess, the covers thrown aside and clumped when you had pulled yourself from half-sleep to answer the door. It looks like heaven to be honest, but you lead her over to your bureau, letting go of her hand to rummage through a drawer for one of your shirts. You end up with that old and a little too big uni t-shirt you got for free during spirit week freshman year. It’s gray and green with a loose collar, and you place it in her open hands.

You decide to dig out a pair of shorts just in case, adding it to the pile. “Change,” you say and the words seem to echo in the silence. “I’ll be right back.”

By the time you work your way through the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cupboard and filling it water and then the bathroom for some advil, you find her curled up on your bed, her clothes in a pile on your floor. The covers have been completely ignored, and you deposit the glass and the two pills on the nightstand. You make sure she’s safely tucked, pulling up the covers to her chin until she’s wrapped in a cocoon of your duvet, before stepping back.

It unsettles you how much she seems to fit here. Or how much you want her to.

“I’ll be on the couch.” The words are soft in the low light. You want to crawl into bed with her. “Holler if you need anything.”

You see her nod imperceptibly, or maybe turn further into your pillow, blond hair spread out starkly against the dark sheets, and you’re back out in the hallway in a matter of seconds. It’s quieter than you remember it being and you drift down the hall gathering her shoes. They dangle from your fingers, clinking together dully when you reach down for her jacket. You arrange the heels by the edge of the sofa, spending more time than you should making sure they’re right, and then sink into cushions with a sigh, her jacket folded over your arms.

Papers crinkle under you when you shift to stretch out your legs, tuck your toes under the throw pillows, and you try not to think about the kiss, but it lingers with such clarity just behind your eyes even when you close them. The empty room, the warmth to her skin—the feel of her lips, and the hand curled into your shirt near your waist. The hesitancy you felt when you leaned in and that soft give and take it became before she pulled away—

—her soft apology and the reassurance that followed shortly after.

You don’t remember dreaming, but you feel warm.

* * *

 

You wake up four hours later with her jacket wrapped around you, and you stay there for a little bit longer. Underneath the bar smoke, it smells like her, like summer and sunshine, and it almost lulls you back to sleep. Almost. You force yourself up when it occurs to you what’s happening, trudging over to the counter after folding her jacket and draping it over the arm of the couch.

There’s leftover pita bread on the counter-top from last night’s dinner and you wrap it and place it back in fridge before scrounging about for the coffee grounds. The groan of the machine starts in a matter of moments and the steady drip of coffee into the pot is the normalcy you need. You pour some into a mug before it's done, making quick work of it so there’s minimal spillage on your counter, and then plop yourself onto one of the island chairs with a carton of cream, the jar of sugar, and a spoon.

In the end, the task does little to distract you. Ten minutes turn to twenty, twenty to a half an hour. By then your coffee is cold, the machine is done its groaning, and the only thing you’ve managed to accomplish is think about the person still asleep in your bed. You think of all the things you could say to her, or should for that matter, trying to unscramble the mess in your head by laying the words you want to say side by side. As if this was something you thought you could prepare for in the first place.

And maybe that’s the glory of it all. That tongue tied, lightheadedness, flutter of your heart kind of feeling when she looks at you.

It's when you hear a muffled ‘shit’ from the room over, followed by a loud clatter, that you decide something is better than nothing, and you stand from your chair in search of another mug. You find one in the sink, and you wash and dry it before filling it with the last of the coffee from the pot and set it in the microwave for a minute and a half.

You turn around at the forty-five second mark when you hear bare feet pad into the kitchen and you see her clamber onto one of the chairs, hair tousled and wavy, indents on her cheek from the sheets, and your old shirt hanging low on her shoulders. Remnants of sleep cling to her eyes like last night’s makeup, but fondness settles in you like a drug. Slowly and then all at once.

The beep of the microwave draws your attention back and you quickly take out the mug. Steam rises steadily as you turn towards the island to slide the coffee over to Clarke and she pulls it towards herself without a word, both hands wrapped around the mug, fingers interlocking through the handle as she brings it to her mouth for the first small sip. You don’t miss the tiny grimace she makes. You take a seat in the chair beside her, nudging over the cream and sugar. She adds a generous amount of cream and (after stealing your spoon from earlier) two large scoops of sugar. The spoon clinks against the mug as she twirls it around her coffee once, twice, and only then does she dare to take another sip, setting the mug down after she does.

“You kissed me.”

The words startle you and you look over only to find her staring intently into her cup of coffee. You’re not sure what to say in response.

“Sometimes I think I made it up,” she continues absently, but you see her fingers worry the small dents in the ceramic, and you haven’t seen her this nervous since the day she met the kids. “And I was wondering if maybe... you’d mind refreshing my memory?”

It takes a second for it to register exactly what she’s asking of you and you don’t waste another. She’s like breathing, and when your lips meet she hums low in her throat. You can taste last night’s alcohol dull on her tongue, bitter and warm and soft, and when you pull away just barely, her name escapes from you in a whisper, voice rough with the feelings hanging in the back of your mouth.

She presses her forehead against yours, breathing in sharply. “You know, my mind’s still a little foggy—”

You lean back in and you’re sure it's a mess, more of a smile and a smushing of noses than a kiss. It makes you feel alive. Irrevocably and inexplicably alive.


	2. Chapter 2

You kiss her every chance you get and she lets you. In those little instances you carve out for the both of you between moments of silence and the hecticness of daily life. It's a soft press of lips out in the hall before the sun rises and has a chance to catch you both unaware--all softness with none of the hesitance, her fingers weaved through the belt loops of your jeans, and you want her closer.

It’s a brief kiss against her cheek when the kids are hunkered down for a nap, oblivious, the snow stubbornly continuing to fall outside and adding to the ever growing drifts collecting like neglected dust on the sidewalks. You do it because you’ve gotten to know her, gotten to know what the small tilt to her lips means when she tucks a wayward strand of blonde hair behind her ear and presses a small kiss of her own to the corner of your mouth. It’s the best kind of revenge--leaves you breathless and so very much in love.

You have a feeling she knows. Not in so many words, but by the way you chase after her, fingers curling into the soft fabric of her blouse and pulling her back.

The smile on her lips unfolds like spring. “Ruthless,” she mutters, teasing, but your hold is loose, fingers nearly fraying behind the small of her back.

“All is fair in war, Clarke.” _And love_ , you think, but it lingers like wishes on the back of your tongue.

She takes a moment to fix the collar of your shirt, momentarily trapped and in no rush to escape, but the second she begins to pull away, satisfied with her job well done, you let her go. Your fingertips drag along her waist as she retreats, dropping back to your side when there’s nothing left to keep them busy.

It’s quiet, and you watch her rummage through your desk with something akin to tenderness. An all too familiar warmth seeps into your chest, spreads in tendrils upwards to the hollow of your throat and you try to swallow it back it down, but it bleeds into your cheeks all the same.

You don’t try to hide it, following after her after a moment, meandering through little lumps of blankets and pillows that stir ever so slightly with signs of life until you’re opposite her, your weight settling heavy on your hands when you place them flat against the desktop. She smiles wide at you from your chair, her findings spread out over the top of your desk in a mess of markers and pencils, little sticks of glue, construction paper, and the handful of kid-safe scissors you keep hidden away when not in use for your own peace of mind.

“I have an idea,” she says.

 

* * *

 

Your newest, and subsequently youngest, is barely three and he’s this little messy-haired thing with perpetual tired eyes and his thumb in his mouth. His mother, Lily, can’t be any older than you, and the day you meet her she comes in to drop off Aden with shadows under her eyes. It’s early morning a little bit before opening (so you could iron out the details without distraction) and now the three of you stand outside Anya’s office waiting. Lily seems reluctant, her hand spread out over a sleeping Aden’s back, gently rubbing, the little boy’s face tucked into her neck.

“I’ll be back around five?” she asks, almost as if she’s afraid you’ll keep him. “My classes end at 4:30. I’ll be here as soon as I can.”

It’s Clarke who responds. “It’s not a problem. We’ll take good care of him. I promise.”

A moment ticks by and then another until Lily finally hands him off to you with a small smile and you feel Aden stir in your arms. The little boy rouses from sleep to turn towards his mother, looking at her questionably from where his head is propped against your shoulder.

Lily reaches out to pinch Aden’s nose gently between her fingers and Aden’s giggle is lost in your shirt. “Be back, baby boy,” she says softly and then turns to you. “And thank you again, especially on such short notice--”

You shake your head and the soft, unruly hairs on Aden’s head tickle your chin. “There’s no need to thank us--”

“--You’re just doing what you do, I know, but thank you anyways.”

You subconsciously move your weight from one foot to the other, a little awkward rock that has Aden quiet as his head turns to watch his mother walk out of the building. There’s a moment of silence and you know this must be difficult when you see Lily pause at the door, glancing over her shoulder and giving a little wave. None of these kids are yours, but there is always a moment with each of them when you realize they might as well be.

This is one of them.

You readjust Aden on your hip and curious brown eyes find yours. “How about the grand tour?” you say, soft, a small curl to your lips. Out of the corner of your eyes, Clarke does a terrible job at hiding her smile.

The daycare is small. Only four rooms including your own and the office. There’s an indoor playroom that takes up a large portion of the building and it has this little plastic house with a tiny slide and a collection of stuffed animals piled high in the far corner next to the bean bag chairs. You notice with a smile that it catches Aden’s interest immediately, his little eyes wide, and you place him on his feet and watch him wobble in place as he tries to take all of it in. His face is somewhere between wonder and apprehension, and it's not long before he raises his arms in a silent request and you hoist him back onto your hip.

Tris’ room is next and you peek in to say hi. She’s looks a little tired but she waves happily from the floor where she’s organizing things for the day. She takes care of the younger kids (two and under, and there’s only a few and that’s probably for the best) along with Anya whenever she’s free from office work and it’s probably not the best way to run things, but it works for now.

By the time you’re back in your room your arms are tired and you hand Aden off to Clarke so you can begin to prepare. She holds him with far more tenderness than necessary and within minutes the boy is asleep, arms slack and nearly drooling.

“I like this one,” Clarke mutters, mouth just shy of the little boy’s forehead and you pause by your desk to watch her. She’s still only a few feet from the door, her idle sway an unconscious action. The sun hits the floor just right and it casts this reflected light that highlights the curve of her jaw, her cheeks, the lightness of her hair and you have to look away.

There’s this sort-of silent agreement that you both need to move slow. You kiss her because you want to and she likes it and there’s this certain craving prickling beneath your skin, but you’re more than aware of the moments you’ve buried and the past she’s trying to hide from. So you wait until the world isn’t watching and pretend like that changes things.

You’re not even sure what to call it--this thing you have with her other than that it feels… right? Or at the very least familiar. Like you’ve done all this before and her presence is that low warmth you’ve been subconsciously aching for and it scares you. A little bit. You know what it's like to put too much into something and have it cripple you.

And maybe that’s why, despite how much you want to, you spend more time thinking than doing. You watch her step in and out of the sun, wandering without purpose around your room with Aden in her arms, and you think of falling asleep with her. You think of nudging your nose just under her ear where her scent is the strongest. You think of wrapping your arms around her, holding her close. You think of feeling comfortable and warm and whole. You think of telling her you love her, you love her, you love her, but you’re sure it's too much too fast and you’re not sure if it's real or if you’re just way past lonely.

(a part of you already knows)

(You won’t burden her with that)

 

* * *

 

By four o’clock the majority--if not all--of the kids are gone. The daycare doesn’t close until five, but the pick-ups start as early as two as parents get off from work and trickle in one after another until it's just you and Clarke. With Aden, however, a few minor tweaks were made. You don’t mind; you stay late more often than not and you’ve grown quite fond of the little boy in the past few days.

And that’s how you find yourself sitting on the floor with Aden between your bent legs, close enough to reach out and play with the strands of hair that fall over your shoulder. You’re not sure what he sees, the Brachiosaurus stuffed toy that he was quick to hoard forgotten in front of him for a brief moment, but--and it's no surprise--you humor him. He gives a tiny tug and you shake your head, hair whipping and tumbling. When you stop abruptly it settles in a mess, more in your face than not, and you stare sternly through the curls of your hair at the little boy in front of you.

And just as you thought, the look has no effect and Aden dissolves into tiny bubbling giggles. He reaches forward and you give your head a shake before he has a chance to curl his little fingers into your hair.

The sound of the door opening and closing makes you stop and you quickly brush aside the strands from your face.

“Clarke.” The word is a little breathless, stumbling from the tip of your tongue. Clarke looks over at the sound of her name and the look she gives you makes it seem like you’ve been caught. You catch Aden’s hands in yours, holding them still and away from your hair. That doesn’t deter him from trying to win back your attention, however. Your name is a constant stream from his mouth and after the fourth or fifth ‘lexa’ the L sound in your name has somehow wandered closer to R.

It makes Clarke smile as she takes a seat in one of the small chairs. “Jenna’s mom finally showed up. Apparently there was some traffic on the highway.”

Aden gives up his quest for your hair and instead settles for clapping both of your hands together. You keep still, his palms patting against yours without rhythm or rhyme. “She better?”

“Now that her mom’s picked her up, yeah. Got a little teary eyed on me in the office, but she’s a trooper.”

“Thank you. For handling that.”

“It’s no big deal. We’re a team, that’s what teams do.” Clarke props an elbow on her knee, resting her head in her hand. She gestures at Aden then. “Plus, you have your hands full.”

You look down to find Aden’s hands curled up in yours. Aden grins up at you, his body wriggling like an overexcited puppy, happy to have your attention. He reaches down for the dinosaur and holds it up. “Rrr-exa!” he says. There’s this almost pitiful (in the cutest way) growl to his voice, face scrunched as if that helps him sound menacing and doesn’t, in any way, make you smile.

That’s a lie of course. You’ve been smiling a lot lately.

You lower your hands, brace them on the floor so you can lean your weight on your arms as you watch him gurgle and growl. He parades the stuffed toy in the space between the two of you, acting out the scene in his head with such open enthusiasm that it's hard not to be endeared. But--as with anything you spend too much time with--it wasn’t really a matter of _if_ but rather _when._ And you’re sure that _when_ happened long before you had realized. Like other things, and before you can stop it your eyes have wandered to Clarke.

“Clarke,” you say and there is a point to this you swear. You have things to ask her, questions that have been nibbling at the edges of your mind since that morning in your apartment. After you had taken a moment to breathe you made her breakfast, this small little plate of scrambled eggs because between christmas and the end of the year, you couldn’t find it in yourself to go grocery shopping. You would have given everything you had to keep her there with you for a little longer, but afterwards you pushed her off to the bathroom to shower, and she left wearing a pair of your sweatpants and that university t-shirt too big under her jacket.

It felt too fast; it made you anxious. But you want her close, no matter if you’re moving fast or not at all.

“I was wondering,” you start, trailing off and you blame it on the sudden nerves. Even Aden has quieted, brown eyes focused on you. You try to ignore it, taking a quick breath before continuing. “If you would like to stop by later? There’s some spring plans I’d like to finalize and I’d appreciate the input.”

You watch her lips purse as she contemplates, chewing the inside of her cheek, but she makes up her mind quickly. “Okay.”

Okay. The word leaves your heart a mess in your chest (stutters and stops and starts). “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she says with slight shrug of her shoulders and a quirk to the corner of her mouth.

“Seven then?”

“Sounds great.” She’s smiling now and it's this gentle, quiet thing. “Is there anything I should bring?”

“Just yourself,” you say and it slips out so easily. Clarke glances at you, a blush dusting her cheeks, and you can’t help offering a smile.

Aden tugs your sleeve and your attention averts. There’s this pout on his face, dinosaur tucked to his chest. “I wanna come, too.”

Out of the corner of your eye you see Clarke turning to hide her smile in her palm, but half of it sticks out anyway. It dimples her cheeks and you have to tear yourself away. “Your mother is going to be here soon to pick you up,” you say. “Maybe next time.”

Aden looks down at the toy in his hands, his frown deepening. His little fists squeeze the soft fabric of the toy and it gives under the pressure until he releases, kneading. You pick your weight from your arms, leaning forward to tuck your hands underneath his arms. His shoulders rise towards his ears, protecting his neck against any unexpected tickles, and you can’t help that little tug of your lips. You hoist him up as you stand and he giggles at the rush, holding onto the toy for dear life before you settle him on your hip. One of his little hands lets go of the toy and grips your shirt instead. You can’t help but feel important.

 

* * *

 

“Hiking?”

“Yes?” you pause, brows pinched as your eyes search her face. “You don’t think so?”

“No, I just…” Clarke makes herself at home on your couch, tucking her legs comfortably underneath her. Your empty bowls sit on the coffee table, the leftover tomato sauce smeared across the sides the only remnants of the pasta you cooked. “Hiking with kids I mean. Don’t you think that’s got ‘terrible idea’ written all over it?”

You angle yourself towards her, your work binder spread open over one bent leg while the other dangles over the edge of the couch. “Think of it as more of a nature walk, then.”

“With sixteen overly excitable kids, I don’t think so.” There’s this undercurrent of amusement in her voice as you watch her thoughtfully fiddle with the sleeve of her sweater. “I’m not exactly in the best shape to go chasing after kids in the woods.”

You give a little shake of your head. “They’re more well-behaved than that. Plus, there’s two of us for a reason.”

“Are you volunteering to be the designated kid chaser, then?”

“If I have to,” you say and she smiles.

“How about a planetarium or a nature center?” Clarke offers after a moment. “We won’t have to worry about them getting too lost.”

“Clarke.” It's a halfhearted chide and you can already feel the beginnings of a smile tugging at your lips. “Yes or no?”

“Maybe.”

You roll your eyes and Clarke reaches across your small couch to give your shoulder a push, but when she settles back against her corner of the couch you feel like trailing after her. The edges of her sweater are frayed, the cuffs splitting and wayward strands poking this way and that and you want nothing more than to crawl into it with her. To stay there until the world thaws and spring protrudes from winter's paws. You don’t have the courage for that, though, not right now, but after a second of contemplation you take her hand in yours.

Her eyes dart down to look at your hands intertwined on the cushion between the two of you, but she says nothing. You swear you feel her give a subtle squeeze.

You clear your throat. “The zoo.”

Her gaze lifts from your hands and catches your eyes before she looks down again, humming her acknowledgment.

“It’s outdoors. It’s relatively safe. The kids get something to look at.”

Her fingers wriggle, finding a more comfortable position in your hold. She brushes her thumb lazily across your knuckles and your heart does this tumbley thing in your chest. “Sam would enjoy that,” Clarke muses.

“You’re going to have to explain to her that the elephants won’t be pink.”

Clarke snorts softly. “I knew that would come back to bite me.”

Her eyes stay low and you don’t bother trying to hide the fact that you’re staring. Your heart thuds against your ribs, heavy and pushing, and the nerves you thought had disappeared trickle in and it's as if you’re stumbling over to the door to let her in all over again, a mess in more ways than one (food bubbling over on the stove, hands sweaty, and there she was in her puffed up coat and sweater and faded jeans, and all you could think of was how pretty she looked). It's softer now but there, this deceptive low heat that simmers just below your skin.

You thumb through the papers with your free hand and try not to think. “Is that a yes?”

“Sure.” She nods almost offhandedly, a little unfocused. “Sign me up.”

You go to do just that, plucking the right document from the pile on your lap, only to realize that with your right hand in her left, you can’t. And quite honestly, letting go isn’t an option. You get lost a little bit right then. Lost in this moment and all of its possibilities.

“What are we, Clarke?” The words slip out in a exhale and you almost don’t want her to respond. You’ve grown used to whatever this is in spite of every little thing telling you no. You wonder if it was inevitable from the start.

“Whatever we want to be.” Her voice is airy and hopeful, but it sounds a little too wishful even for Clarke. Or maybe it’s just her roundabout way of saying she’s scared, too.

You play with her fingers, a little uncomfortable but unwilling to retreat. “I’m gay,” you say and you mean it in all seriousness, but in the quietness of your apartment, it’s less of a confession and more of a proclamation. She already knows, you know she does, and saying it still lifts a weight off your chest, your mouth curling in a barely contained smile.

Clarke cracks a grin, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I kinda figured.” She looks up at you. “Or at the very least I had a really big hunch.”

Your insides bubble and you feel a surge of energy you’re not quite sure what to do with. It makes your skin tingle. “What gave it away?”

“Oh, you know…” Clarke’s eyes dart to your lips and you have a feeling she can hear you swallow.

A blush darkens your cheeks long before Clarke begins to lean in. It starts in your cheeks at the look of her and then inches its way to your ears and down your neck, prickling. Slowly. Your eyes droop out of instinct, watching her for as long as you can without being cross-eyed, trying to focus on everything all at once. You get caught on the mark above her lip, the small swell of her mouth, and before you know it she’s kissing you.

It’s soft and chaste, but the pressure remains long after she pulls away and tucks herself in next to you. Speechless and content, you don’t let go of her hand. You keep it curled in your own until midnight looms and Clarke finally manages to pull herself from the couch with mutters about where the time had gone.

You follow her to the door even though you know you don’t have to. She slips on her jacket after pulling it off one of the hooks by the door and you wait a few steps away, arms folded over your stomach in what you hope comes across as nonchalance and not an attempt to resist reaching out for her again.

It works as well as you expect. Which is not at all.

You pinch the edge of her sweater where it peeks out from beneath her coat. You don’t make it obvious and it's something she can escape from with minimal effort, but she doesn’t. She presses into you briefly, stomachs and hips lining together as she touches her lips to yours.

“Send me the stuff?” she says after she pulls away, but she lingers in your space until she manages gather herself back together. Her hand reaches blindly behind her for the doorknob. She misses twice. “The paperwork I mean. For the trip.”

“Of course.” It’s rough and breathy and you’d be embarrassed by how you sound if you weren’t already somewhat preoccupied.

“Great.” She nods and presses her lips together, tucking traitorous strands of hair behind her ear. “Awesome. I’ll, uh, catch you later then.”

You let go. “Goodnight, Clarke.”

 

* * *

 

It's a simple thing to finalize the last of the details for the trip. You make a few phone calls, Clarke signs a few papers, you pick a tentative date in mid April (a Saturday as per usual), and then all that’s left is the confirmation and the wait. Anya handles the rest.

“The zoo, huh?” Anya’s peers over the top of her computer, watching with a smirk as you fiddle with the fax machine. “What happened to your nature walks?”

The fax whirs as it sucks up another paper from your hands. It’s old and it’s probably about time you splurged on a new one. “Figured it was time for something new.”

“Uh huh,” she drawls and the skepticism is practically woven into her voice. You turn your body away, waiting for the last of the papers to run through, and when they do you rummage through the little makeshift container by the machine for a paperclip and slide it on.

“File these for me?” you say, placing the stack on Anya’s desk.

Anya reclines back in her chair, fingers folded together. There’s a sparkle in her eye, but she rocks forward, reaching for the papers. “You’re not fooling me, kid.”

You pause and that sort-of silence you’ve grown used to with her hangs in the space between you. “Who said I was trying to?”

Her smirk softens and she shakes her head. “You never could. You’re all or nothing, you know that? Too fast and too easy.”

“You know I don’t half ass things. It’s not my style.”

She looks at you a little sadly, but there’s pride somewhere in there too. You’ve known her since you were young, when you were both these little wild things destined to take over the world, and you’d defend her to the death. She would do the same for you too, and maybe that’s why you let her get away with the small things. She’s the only one alive who can.

You run a hand through your hair, focusing on her with a smile. “You wanna come?”

She snorts. “And be the third wheel on your zoo date?” Her face scrunches thoughtfully. “Actually, you know what, someone will have to watch the kids.”

“How thoughtful--”

“--by kids, I mean you.”

You smirk. “Think about it.”

She waves you off and you leave feeling light. The hall is quiet, four o’clock come and gone, but when you pass by your door, glancing through the window and seeing nothing besides how you left it, you keep walking. The giggles start a few seconds later, sitting among the casual silence like it’s lived there for years. You know before you see it, but that doesn’t stop you from imagining it anyway.

And honestly, your imagination doesn’t do it justice.

Aden sits like a little king in one of the large beanbag chairs and Clarke sits cross-legged in front of him, hands out palm up but empty. The look of wonder that touches Aden’s face, wide eyes and open mouth as he scoots forward to get a better look at Clarke’s hands, isn’t something you’ll soon forget.

After a moment Clarke draws her hands back, cups them closed and shakes. When she opens them again, the glint of silver is undeniable, her soft laughter lost amid Aden’s awe.

You slip inside and the door closes behind you, the click of the latch catching both Clarke and Aden’s attention, and they turn to you in tune. Aden’s attention doesn’t hold. He looks away, reaching for the coin and inspecting it in his tiny hands. Clarke, on the other hand, doesn’t. She pats the space next to Aden, indicating the other, and currently unoccupied, beanbag chair.

“Come and join the fun, Lexa.”

You wander over slowly and she rolls her eyes at you, patting the space again as if that will somehow speed your meandering pace. You pick up a discarded stuffed animal on your way over to make the time stretch a little longer. Clarke shakes her head, but when you finally plop down, toy in your lap, she grins at you before turning back to Aden, who hands the coin back without question, urging.

“One more time?” she asks and he nods so enthusiastically you think his brain will turn to mush and start oozing out his ears, but he stops after a second or two and adds “please” like the tiny little gentleman he is.

She makes a show of holding out her hands, palms open and bare besides the quarter that sits on her left just below her fingers. “Just a regular quarter right?” she fishes, transferring the coin from her left to her right and then back again, but Aden is focused, determined to watch the magic happening right before his eyes. “Well, what if I told you I can make it float?”

That catches him and he looks up at Clarke like he’s seen the second coming of christ. “Really, really?” He takes care in enunciating each word and Clarke nods.

She squirms a little bit, positioning herself so that she faces just off to the side from the boy in the beanbag and holds her right hand a good foot or so above her left. “You’re going to need to help me a little bit, though, okay?”

Aden nods once, the epitome of seriousness, and you smile so wide you can feel it reach your ears. Clarke’s eyes dart to you and get caught just for a second before she pulls herself together again.

“On three?”

“One,” comes Aden’s tiny voice and it bubbles under the surface with barely contained excitement. “Two,” is quick to follow and “three,” is right on its heels. You watch Aden’s face more than Clarke’s hands, but you see the coin rise from her left and into her right in your peripheral. It’s actually quite amazing.

“How’d it do that?” Aden asks, full of wonder, when Clarke opens her right hand to show him proof.

“Magic,” Clarke states matter of factly. “How else?”

He takes the coin from her again and as he turns it over in his hands, the quarter large compared to his fingers, Clarke turns her head towards you and smiles this small curl of a thing before looking away again. She glances down at the watch on her right wrist and heaves a little sigh.

“It’s almost time, bud, you ready?”

“No,” he mutters, not looking up, and there’s that familiar pout again. “More magic.”

“I can take him.” You go to pull yourself up and out of the beanbag, but Clarke rests a hand on your knee and you stop.

“Stay,” Clarke says and it's softer than it has any right to be. “I got it.” She hauls herself from the floor and to her feet, dusting her hands on her jeans, and then holds out her hand for Aden to take. “Come on, let’s go get your jacket.”

He observes it curiously, still holding the coin.

Clarke wiggles her hand, urging. “Keep it.”

He finally curls his fingers around her index and middle finger. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She helps him up. “And I bet that finger painting you did for your mom is dry by now. She’s going to love it.”

“Really, really?”

You share an amused look with Clarke. “Really, really,” she says and the smile on her face is bright. They’re out the door a few moments later, hand in hand, and the silence that settles in their absence feels a tad lonely.

If nothing else you feel warm, scooting forward a smidge so that when you tilt your head back to rest it against the beanbag it doesn’t have far to go. There’s a reason you avoid sitting in them and it's this right here. It’s like melting, and the tiredness kept at bay by all the work you need to get done today comes back all at once. It washes over you in a wave and your eyes droop closed and your arms go limp, draped across your stomach and the stuffed animal you have yet to put away.

You don’t know how long it takes for Clarke to come back, half asleep as you are, but you feel the beanbag dip and your bodies gravitate towards each other. You don’t open your eyes.

“Almost over,” she says, her head bumping against your shoulder.

“Really, really?” you respond, and it's this half teasing half sleepy drawl.

She pinches your hip without warning and you let out a squeak, opening your eyes and angling yourself away before she can do it again, the toy tumbling off your lap. Squished together on the beanbag means there’s not much keeping her from reaching across the space between you, but she doesn’t. She stills, your arms tucked between the two of you, hers under and yours over, and when you turn to look she’s rested her head back against your shoulder.

“Where did you learn?”

“Learn what? The magic tricks?” She goes silent, but she threads her fingers through yours and you know she’s thinking. It's a little bit before she offers, “My dad.”

The tone she takes sounds familiar to you in a way you don’t want to put a name to, so you stay quiet.

“When I’d get anxious or stressed, he’d pull a coin out of his pocket and it would take my mind off things.” She gives a little shrug. “Like magic.”

“My first girlfriend and I,” you begin and you have to swallow around the lump that automatically lodges itself in your throat at the word. You had only ever had a first girlfriend. You still miss her sometimes, but the ache never really goes away. “We grew up together. She’d drag me down to this little spot in the woods when I’d get quiet on her. She knew it calmed me down, being out there.”

Clarke hums. “‘s funny how other people know you better than you know yourself sometimes.”

“I think we know ourselves just fine. It's just, sometimes I think we as human beings believe that we deserve to suffer.”

“And we don’t?”

“No,” you say quietly. “We don’t. Not us.”

And at this very moment, you believe it. Maybe you're just tired of being tired. Maybe you’ve finally realized good things happen when you let them.

“Awfully optimistic of you.”

“It's long overdue.”

She squeezes your hand. “Well, better late than never.”

This small smile tilts your lips as you lean your head back to stare up at the ceiling. You force the tenseness from your muscles, sandwiching the hand in your hold in between both of yours. Her skin is cold, but it warms up quickly.

An hour later Anya finds the both of you curled into each other on the beanbag, dead to the world. Rude awakening aside, it's some of the best sleep you’ve had in awhile.

 

* * *

 

She invites you over for some R&R and you don’t panic. For long. You spend way too much time agonizing over the button up leather jacket combination you know does wonders for your collarbones and the comfortable security of a sweater.

You go with the sweater.

The nerves pick back up again in the elevator ride up to her floor and you try not to think about anything in particular. There’s a subtle buzz beneath your skin that makes you fidgety, tugging the ends of your coat sleeves and pulling up the collar until the fur tickles your jaw. But there’s only so much procrastinating you can accomplish before you’re standing in front of her door.

You knock twice and then stuff your hands into the pockets of your coat, scuffing your boot against the welcome mat to get a bit of the muddy snow off as you wait. A muffled “coming!” filters through the closed door, echoed by a frantic patter of footsteps, and when the door swings open all the air gets caught in your throat.

“Hey,” she says, moving aside to let you in, and she’s dressed in sweats and this loose long-sleeved shirt. You feel like you missed the memo. “Where are your comfy clothes?”

You can’t help but glance down and give yourself the once over as you step past her so she can close the door. The boots and black jeans makes the sweater peeking from beneath your overbearing coat really the only semblance of softness on you, but once your mind settles, acclimates itself to your new surroundings (aligning itself with her) you’ve never felt more at ease. “I am comfy.”

Clarke purses her lips, an attempt to hide a smile, and holds out her hand for your jacket. “Uh huh.”

Your mouth splits into a grin at the lighthearted exasperation in her tone and you reach up to pull the zipper of your coat down. You shrug out of it, one sleeve at a time, and when you hand it over you feel ten pounds lighter.

She wanders away down the small hall, your coat billowed in her arms. Her fluffy socks render her footsteps nearly silent on the hardwood, but the door at the end of the hall creaks when she opens it and she stuffs your coat inside.

She peers around the door after she’s done. “You coming?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

Reaching down, you loosen the laces with a with a few tugs and toe off your boots. You align them neatly by the door, next to the slippers and shoes and small heels you’ve seen Clarke in as well as a few you haven’t. They don’t look like something she would wear so you assume they’re her roommate’s.

The little hall leads out into the living room where two mismatched couches and a tv currently advertising the home shopping channel (situated on a stand housing an extravagant stereo and an overflowing collection of movies and cds) make the place their home. A large rug ties it all together and its colorful squares remind you of your room back at the daycare.

“I’m thinking takeout,” Clarke calls from the kitchen and you turn to watch as she takes out two glasses from the cupboard, holding one of them under the ice machine on the fridge. It rattles, ice clinking noisily against the glass. “Chinese? Pizza?”

“Pizza.”

She pulls back and reaches for the bottle of vodka by the fridge on the counter, adding a splash. Next is the colorful mystery mix that you can’t read the label of from this far away and she twirls the glass after everything settles together, mixing. “Let me guess: Anchovies. No olives.”

You smirk. “Pepperoni is fine.”

“Classic,” she says with a small approving nod. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“What are you having?”

“Something fruity.” Clarke lifts up her glass and takes a sip. “And mildly alcoholic.”

You wander over, lingering by the table. “Do you have anything light?”

Setting her glass down on the counter, she nudges open the fridge again, rummaging around. “There’s beer. It’s Raven’s, so I can’t vouch for its alcohol content...” Bottles clink. “Wine? Or I could mix you up something?”

“I have to drive,” you say, as if every part of you isn’t screaming to stay.

“I got this.” She pulls out some wine and a can of soda. “Trust me.”

The kitchen is small. The fridge, an oven, a little bit of counter space, and the two seat table is all squeezed into this one spot, everything together and in reaching distance. Clarke is an expert in her field as she sets about making you a drink while at the same time picking up her phone a few inches away to place an order for a large pepperoni pizza. She tucks her phone into the crook of her shoulder and her cheek, waiting for the other line to pick up, smiling a little timidly when she catches you watching.

Clarke looks back to the drink she’s making you when the call finally gets through. “Yeah, hi, I’m looking to place an order.” She reaches out for the ice machine again and the cubes fill the glass. “One large pepperoni pizza.”

The wine is next, some white variety, and she lets it fill two thirds before setting it aside, switching to the club soda to top it off. “Sure.” She turns, holds out the glass to you with a smile. She mouths something that looks like ‘anything else?’ and you give a little lift of your shoulders, taking the glass from her. “You know what, could you throw in some cinnamon sticks, too? Thanks.”

She rests against the counter and apparently it's her turn to watch you now. You take a sip to avoid looking back and the bubbles travel through your throat and into your stomach. It's light, just like you asked, but the wine slips through, strong enough to taste.

“Yeah. Ark Heights Apartments, room 303. Thanks again.” She takes the phone from her cheek and shoulder and turns it off. “Should be fifteen or so. How’s the drink?”

“Good.”

“Not too strong?”

“No, it's fine.”

Clarke pushes herself from the counter, taking her glass with her, but just as she’s about to pass you by her right hand finds your left and pulls. You fall into step behind her, following her to the couch, and you sit down without needing to be told. You’re not sure of the boundaries here, but you pull your interlocked hands into your lap as Clarke reaches for the remote on the end table.

She pulls up her feet, switching to netflix. “We got the cream of the crop. What are you up for?”

“Anything.” Nothing. There’s little you can comprehend besides the warmth that settles in your bones and you want to melt into the couch and sleep for a while with her hand holding yours. It makes you feel safe, to have her next to you without pretenses.

“That… doesn’t really help me.”

You look to your left and she’s looking back, a sparkle in her eye. It reminds you of all those weeks ago when you saw the stars in her eyes. You see them everywhere now.

“Something lighthearted?” you offer, not looking away.

She nods. “Alright, we’re getting somewhere.”

Clarke scrolls through the feel good category and you say yes to the first thing she suggests. You settle in for the long haul, sinking into the cushions as the opening credits filter across the screen, your slowly dwindling drink balanced on your thigh. You almost forget about the pizza until there’s a buzz over the apartment intercom a couple of minutes later. It makes you jump.

Clarke gives this little laugh and untangles her hand from yours. “Relax.” She puts her drink down, lowering her feet to the floor and pulling herself up. “I’ll be right back.”

The movie continues to play, but your attention is elsewhere. When Clarke gets back, appearing around the corner with one box on top of the other in her hands, she’s grinning. There’s no table in the living room so after she grabs a few things from the kitchen she pulls you to the floor with a few paper plates and some napkins.

Clarke offers you the first slice and you take your time choosing, the movie soft in the background. “C’mon, tough girl,” she teases, “you have three seconds or I reserve the right to revoke first pick privileges.”

Your hand pauses over a slice and she raises an eyebrow. It’s four seconds and she’s about to pull the box away when you finally decide on a piece on the opposite side of the pizza. She rolls her eyes, but the edge of her mouth is quirked.

Clarke doesn’t eat the crust; she lets you take them from her plate when she’s done and you finish them off as she opens the box of cinnamon sticks. She hums happily at the taste, the sugar clinging to her fingers, and once all that’s left of the pizza is just a few cold slices, she tears off little pieces of the cinnamon sticks and alternates between popping them into her mouth like they’re chips and handing them off to you. They’re this sweet, melt-in-your-mouth flavor that sticks to the back of your throat, but it's something different and you can’t say no to that little grin she has when she offers it to you.

You’re back on the couch by the time it queues into the second movie, both of your backs are aching and butts too close to numb from the hardwood. Your stomachs are full, though, and the drinks have been refilled (non alcoholic for you) so you sink back into that familiar give, exhaling through your nose.

The movie isn’t bad, but if someone were to ask you wouldn’t be able to explain what it was about, and you’re half asleep when you crack open your eyes and see the end credits crawling up the screen. When you close them again you tell yourself that you’re just resting your eyes, that you’ll get up and head out any minute now even as your posture slips.

But the second time you open your eyes, the world’s gone a little askew, and it takes a little bit for you to realize you’re lying sideways on the edge of the couch. You shift, the arm tucked under your head prickly as you move it so you can rub at your eyes, and the room comes together in splotches. First the tv, the sound soft and the scene all muted colors, and then the lights in the kitchen that bleed into the darkness of living room. Clarke must have turned off the lamp on the end table before you had drifted off.

You go to lift yourself up, intent on finding Clarke and saying your goodbyes. You’ve more than overstayed your welcome, you’re sure, but something stops you. It's only then that you notice the arm draped over your waist and the pressure between your shoulder-blades as Clarke presses her forehead there with a sleepy groan.

Your pulse flutters in your throat and you swallow around the heart that finds its place there. You turn your head to look over your shoulder and strands of blonde hair splay out over the couch. A low whine builds in her chest, face scrunching at the slight shift, but she doesn’t wake. Her brows pinch together, nose wrinkling slightly in mild annoyance. She let’s out a breath, this long sigh that releases the lingering discomfort playing across her face, and absently rubs her forehead against your back.

“No,” you hear her mumble sleepily once she settles and it drawls, her arm tightening around your waist and then releasing, “stay.”

In the silence that follows you can hear everything. You can hear the whir of late night traffic. You can hear her long inhales and soft exhales--can feel the warm patch it creates on your back. You can hear the light of the television playing across the living room floor, colors blurring and patterns shifting.

You can hear the ‘I love you’ you don’t say so clearly you think she must hear it too.

But she doesn’t. She can’t. And you’re left with this feeling in your chest that threatens to burst. Lying there, body twisted so you can admire the pouty slant to her mouth, how it purses when she goes to scratch an itch on her nose, you’d stay here forever if you could. If you would let yourself.

Clarke turns over, taking her arm with her and you immediately miss it as she tucks herself against the back of the couch, hands curled under her chin. You’re free now and you don’t want to be, but you pull yourself up into a sitting position and plant your feet firmly on the ground. That doesn’t stop you from looking back--doesn’t stop you from leaning down to press your lips softly to her temple.

She stirs at the touch, this low sound building in the back of her throat, but her eyes flutter open and she stares drearily at the back of the couch before turning to look up you. She clears her throat. “Lexa?” Her voice is hoarse and her eyes have trouble staying open. It makes you want to kiss her more. “What are you doing?”

You brush a strand of hair out of her face. “Heading out.”

“What?” She blinks, brows scrunching together. “No.”

“I have things to do.”

She closes her eyes, turning to face the back of the couch again. “Do them later,” she mumbles.

You wonder if she can see you trying to fight off a smile in the dark. “Go back to sleep, Clarke.”

You leave her a thank you note, for the pizza and the company, and slip out the door after fishing your coat from the closet. You tell yourself you have things you have to do as you make your way out of her apartment building and to your car all bundled up in your coat.

Right now, you miss her warmth the most.

 

* * *

 

“I’m heading home.” Clarke doesn’t look at you when she says it. It's offhand and out of place, laid carelessly at your feet halfway through arts and crafts that you assume she’s just trying to lower your defenses so she can sneak some paint on your face like she’s done with half the kids--as some kind of revenge for almost leaving without saying goodbye.

Which is earned, you understand, despite her insistences that she’s only teasing and the coward she makes of you. But the way she refuses to meet your eyes says something else entirely.

“It's not permanent,” she adds quickly when you don’t offer anything in return. “Just for a little while. Something came up.”

The kids don’t pay either of you much mind, too lost in their own projects, happy to make a mess they won’t get in trouble for. There’s streaks of blue in Jenna’s brown hair and you have to look away for a second to lean over and stop her from pushing the curls from her face with her paint-slobbered hands again. She’s hardly deterred, head held still in your light grip so you can tuck her hair behind her ear without adding any smudges, and she goes back to her painting like nothing’s changed.

“When do you leave?”

When you finally gather it in yourself to turn back Clarke’s waiting. “Friday,” she says, “I talked to Anya and she made sure everything was okay, so...” You can hear the push to her words, like she’s forcing it out in the open after so long of keeping it under wraps and there’s that not-quite relief that comes with it. You wonder how long she’s known, but it's not your place so you force yourself to nod.

There’s three days until Friday and it's with that thought that you realize you’re already counting--the minutes, the moments. The kid’s chatter is interspersed amongst the patter of hands on the table, but you watch her and the lighting seems off and she looks different. New. Or maybe that’s you trying to find ways to keep her here with you despite the looming distance.

“You’ll be okay?” she trails off and you can see her turn the words over in her head before adding, “by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, Clarke,” you say, but you can see that small twitch to her brow, that too soft look in her eyes, and it's like she’s begging you to ask her to stay.

You don’t.

Maybe it’ll be good for the both of you.

 

* * *

 

You explain to all the kids the next day the predicament as best you can given the circumstances and they handle it more or less as you expect--with complaints and whining, and you’re sure Jenna and Aden are a hair away from tears. Thankfully you don’t handle the ensuing chaos alone, but when Clarke shows up that friday morning with a duffle bag packed full of her things, a part of you understands.

She keeps that bag tucked under your desk and out of sight for the duration of the work day and it makes Friday feel like one long goodbye. The kids are sad and they crowd around her at every opportunity, juggling her attention back and forth between the lot of them and you can see it wear her thin. By noon Clarke is all ears and soft smiles, by two she’s fallen quiet, and when you get back from walking Aden out to meet his mom, she hasn’t moved from the spot you saw her last.

(aden had rushed her, wrapping his arms around her legs and holding tight. He would have stayed there if you hadn’t coaxed him out the door. You’re sure it's the small wave and his cracked ‘bye’ that does her in)

Clarke wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and you stand awkwardly by the door trying to figure out if there’s a particular protocol for situations like this. You’ve never been good at goodbyes and you hope it doesn’t show, but what you do know is that monday won’t feel right without her.

You’re actually kind of dreading it. “Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“Two weeks. Maybe.” she says and it's a little wobbly but she pushes through it, her hand threading through her hair. “I mean, there’s no exact date and it's all kinds of fast and I’m sorry for running out on you like this--”

“Clarke.” And she stops, looks at you. “You do what you need to.”

She nods and you take a few careful steps forward. “I’m going to miss these stinkin’ kids,” she says and it's half a laugh and half something else.

You can’t help but smile. “They’re going to miss you too.” She laughs a little at that and you find yourself moving closer, the space between you shrinking to all but nothing. “Do you need a ride?”

Clarke shakes her head no and the tip of her nose brushes just barely against yours. “Raven’s giving me a lift to the airport.”

You kiss her because you can’t not and you mean it to be this short, fleeting thing, but she pushes forward and it steals your breath away.

When she leaves, you feel like she takes it with her.

 

* * *

 

Monday isn’t as bad as you thought it would be, but that doesn’t mean you’re happy about it. You fall easily back into your old routine and it's in the echoes that you see her the most. You miss her morning hello, mumbled sleepily against your cheek and the yawn it gradually becomes when she hobbles away, shrugging out of layer after layer. You miss her silent company in that brief reprieve around midday, you miss her little smiles, her tiny frowns, and you have to remind yourself it's only temporary even if it doesn’t feel like it.

The kids are much more present focused than you and for that you’re thankful. They don’t forget, but their minds center on what’s in front of them and you try to copy that. It works more or less. You’re good at distracting yourself from things with other things closer to you, things you can hold and engage with and immerse yourself in.

With Clarke gone, you’re the default again. You get wrangled into more shenanigans than you can keep track of and by the end of the day your name echoes endlessly inside your head. The only reprieve comes when your head hits the pillow and everything quiets to this tolerable buzz.

It gets warmer though. You’re one week through and February fades into March so softly you almost don’t realize it, and despite a little flurry Thursday morning what’s left of the snow is just dirty clumps collected in the corners of the parking lot.

It’s not a lot, but you can feel it. Steadily, surely. Time passes and all you can do is watch as it does, and you hold onto the things that matter in hopes that they don’t. Which is hard, you realize a little too late, because distance works differently than time. You can feel it like a pull and it's the pain of not being able to move.

There’s little instances though, moments when that pull becomes more of a push and it's like the distance lessens--an inch. She texted you when her plane landed safely in Pennsylvania late that Friday night, sent you a picture of a dog with no message besides the word ‘puppy’ and a smiley face emoji a few days after that, but the following Tuesday night your phone rings while you’re stretched out over the couch that distance feels as though it’s been cut in half.

“Hey,” she says. It escapes as a sigh, cutting through the softness of your living room and the past week and a half of silence. Her voice sounds an awful lot like home.

“Hey,” is your intelligent response and it stumbles out as a cracked whisper, but it doesn’t seem like enough to describe this lightness in your chest. “Hi,” you try again, and the weight to your words grounds you here with her.

“How are you?”

The tv is low, but you reach for the remote on the coffee table and mute it anyway, rolling away so there’s nothing to distract you besides the lights that cast your shadow against the back of the couch. “Tired,” you say and she chuckles. You close your eyes. “But good.”

She hums and the sound trickles its way down your spine. “That’s good,” she says, but you can hear the way she settles. Forcefully, as if each of her limbs creaks with the effort.

“Clarke?”

“Yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m okay.” You don’t miss the way her voice hitches, that nearly audible swallow and exhale. “Just tired.”

You tug at loose threads on the couch. “Same as me,” you say, soft, and hopefully the humor comes across as you intend it. You were never really good at casual humor, though, so you don’t have much hope. Her silence only makes it worse.

“Clarke.”

“I miss you,” she says and you feel her hand curl around your heart and squeeze. “I miss the kids. I miss our room. I miss--” she stops, sniffs wetly. “Sorry. I’m tired and the tequila probably isn’t helping.”

You don’t like the way she says those words and you sit up, cradling the phone between your cheek and shoulder. “Clarke.”

“I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Clarke--” You scramble for something to say, mouth working around that uselessness you hate until: “I’m here. You know that right?”

“I know,” she says quietly after a moment. “Goodnight, Lexa.”

You don’t get to say it back. From there on out it's just radio silence.

 

* * *

 

“I like pink.”

You nod, watching as Aden drags the crayon across the piece of paper. “Pink is a good color.”

“Do you think Miss Griffin likes pink too?”

You think of the way her blush begins in the apple of her cheeks, spreading rosy and flush to her ears and neck. How her lips curl into that quirk of a smile and you fall further and further into her. “Yes, I think so.”

He accepts your answer without comment, mouth pressing into a thin line and his tongue sticking out as he colors with renewed determination. You’re not sure what it is to be honest. He took Clarke’s expressionism babble a month ago to heart despite probably not understanding 99% of it. You think he just enjoys all the colors.

The scribbling stops momentarily as Aden swaps his pink crayon for a green one and you decided to follow his example, plucking a blank piece of paper from the pile and a yellow crayon almost too small for your hand. It’s just the two of you, the rest of the kids come and gone as the wait for Aden’s mother to return from her evening Thursday class begins. Aden’s been quiet for the better part of the past few days and you aren’t particularly good at magic tricks, so you figure coloring is the next best thing.

You’re kinda shit at that too though.

Aden’s crayon stills when curiosity gets the best of him and he leans over to stare intently at the wobbly circle your coloring in. “What’s that?”

You pause, moving your arm so he can have a better look. “It’s a lion.”

He considers that for a moment, tilting his head this way and that, and then gives his head a shake. “That’s not a lion.”

Your lips purse. You’ve been here long enough to know not to get into trivial arguments with the kids. Doesn’t mean you’re not up for a challenge. “It’s not a lion yet. I’m not finished.“

At the moment it’s just a yellow circle with some fuzz, so you reach for the black crayon and add two dots for eyes, a triangle nose and a mouth that’s a basically a three that fell over. You slide the paper towards him again. “How about now?”

A goofy smile spreads across his face and you can’t stop yourself from mirroring it. It’s the best possible answer you could have hoped for. “Ears,” Aden says between giggles, pointing to the top of the fuzzy mass.

More triangles. Which you can handle no problem and you switch back to the yellow crayon. Two triangles later and you have to admit, he was right. You look back to him and he’s still smiling. So are you. “What’s next?”

“Tail!” he says excitedly, scooting closer to watch. You have to draw the body first and it's this rounded rectangle with little peg legs that have pointy ends for claws. It’s absolutely terrible, like some poor excuse for 14th century art where the body and the head just don’t match up. There’s a word for it, Clarke mentioned it teasingly once a while back when your lack of prowess with a crayon had made itself apparent, but for the life of you you can’t remember what it is. Right now though, it’s the furthest thing from your mind.

Time slips away from you. The tail isn’t the end point, it's the beginning, and you’re waist deep in fantasy and imagination and wings and serpent's tails that your drawing becomes so much more than a simple lion. It takes your mind off the silent phone stuffed into your desk drawer, the call logs stuck on last Tuesday.

Aden asks to keep your picture, and when he bounds down the hall towards his mother, the paper waving in his hand, it's the first thing out of his mouth. Lily looks at you, amused, and all you can manage is a shrug and a small wave.

After cleaning up the small crayon explosion on the table, you stop by the office before heading out. Anya’s still there, stretched out behind her desk sorting through some paperwork. She looks tired too, and you’d bet if someone could get the both of you to stand side by side for more than a few seconds before one of you decided to wrestle, they’d be able to match up the dark circles pore for pore.

Clarke’s absence is a ripple and you’re all kind of feeling it.

Anya looks up from the papers in her lap and then back down. “All set?”

You sigh, setting down your laptop bag in one of the visitor chairs by the door before claiming another for yourself. “For now it’s as good as it’s going to get.”

“Did you get a chance to clean up the playground?”

“Aden gets picked up early tomorrow.” You sink backwards into your chair. The mere thought of that playground covered in debris leftover from winter causes your muscles to ache. “I’ll do it before I head out.”

Anya nods, but otherwise says nothing. There’s a moment of quiet, papers shuffling, and it's the kind of quiet that leaves you hesitant. It tells you to prepare even before Anya opens her mouth.

“Heard from Clarke?”

Your silence says everything you don’t.

“Lexa--”

“If she wanted to talk she would.” You tense. “I'm merely giving her that space.”

“And it's draining you dry worrying about it.” Anya exhales loudly. “Look, I know Clarke can handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she should have to. Whatever it is that’s bothering her I’m sure she would appreciate the support.”

You stare at your hands folded together in your lap, thumb rubbing back and forth over your first knuckle. The fatigue doesn’t set in until you stop moving, and right now it sits like a weight on your chest.

“Give her a call.”

Your lips tilt downward, jaw working back and forth as your fingers knot tightly together, and the tension only lessens when you make it, breathing out through your nose. Your hands relax, folded loosely together even if the whiteness to your skin takes a moment to fade, the blood flowing back in.

And you try. You do. You’re halfway up the stairs to your apartment, cellphone pressed to your ear, and it rings and rings. You’re toeing off your shoes in the small foyer, closing the door softly behind you as the bag hanging off your shoulder begins to slip, and it rings and rings.

It rings and rings.

 

* * *

 

Through some small miracle, Friday is warm, and after the day is done you haul a couple of empty trash bags out towards the playground. The damage is minimal. Besides a few wayward branches and random trash, all you find is one glove, and you’re sure it's the one you lost back in the fall somewhere beneath all the leaves. One bag is all the debris--the branches and crumbled leaves--and the second are the styrofoam coffee cups and plastic chip bags that had somehow managed to wander this far out.

The work is calming in a way, all-encompassing despites it's simplicity, and it's easy to lose yourself in it. Things have a place they belong; there’s no thought required, and the monotony is calming compared to the state of your mind, to the worry that ceases to settle, and it leaves you tiredly content and covered in patches of dirt.

Anya finds you sprawled out on the first landing of the playground by the slide, catching your breath before you bring the trash bags out back to the dumpster, but you ignore her for a little longer in favor of the sun. She nudges your leg dangling over the side when she grows impatient and you look away from the clouds, raising a brow.

“Are you sungazing?”

“The sun is a star.”

“Doesn’t mean you should stare at it.”

You kick out your leg and there’s a satisfying thunk when it hits her shin lightly, but she grins and you don’t feel like you’ve won. She maneuvers herself around the railing to take a seat beside you, draping her arms over the bars and resting her weight against them.

“Would you mind some company tomorrow?”

You roll your head to stare at Anya’s back and in spite of a lot of things, this sight hasn’t changed. You’re grateful for it.

She turns back to look at you. “You get the food, I’ll bring the booze?” Grinning, she reaches over to nudge your thigh. “C’mon that’s a pretty good deal.”

“Depends.” You look up at the sky again, the clouds drifting lazily across its expanse. “Are you going to bring that drink mix I like?”

“Depends. Are you going to be a grump?”

You lift up your head at that. “I’m not a grump.”

“Sometimes you are,” Anya says, patting your thigh with faux empathy. “Only sometimes though.”

Your lips tilt into a small smile despite your efforts and no amount of hiding can stop Anya from noticing, but she doesn’t mention it. She leans back on the bars, tilting her head back to watch the sky with you. It feels familiar, reminds you of those months you spent trying to find your feet again, how the pain felt like it was eating away at you and you tried to push everyone away, but Anya had always been more stubborn than you. You figure she’s the reason you’re still here.

“It’ll be fun,” she says. “Like old times.”

You know better than to doubt her.

You lay there for a little bit longer before you muster the energy to move and Anya helps you toss the trash bags into the dumpster behind the daycare. There’s a few things to take care of inside and after they’re done the both of you go your separate ways.

The ride home is quick and you let everything drop the moment you close your apartment door behind you, making your way to the bathroom and the shower that has been calling your name ever since four o’clock. Clothes peel off one by one, but there’s a certain satisfaction the moment you take out your contacts and the world blurs around you.

All the dirt and sweat washes off easily, but you linger under the rush until you feel pruny and waterlogged. You tug on a old pair of jeans and t-shirt, pulling a sweater on last and they’re all loose and soft from use, before searching about your nightstand for your glasses. You don't really need them, and more often than not you'd rather bumble about without them. They sit low on your nose, a smidge too big, and you have to push them up when you rummage about your fridge and pantry to see what you need for tomorrow, but they're a crutch that's more than welcome right now.

You make a list of what you need on a scrap piece of paper you tear off from a pad stuck to your refrigerator. After checking it twice, you fold it and slip it into your pocket, gathering your phone, wallet, and keys before slipping on a pair of shoes you left by the couch. You take one look at your winter jacket, hung up by the door, and leave without it.

The supermarket about fifteen minutes from your apartment is dead at six o’clock and you wander the isles packing things into a small basket hooked on your arm. There’s chips and dip, a little smorgasbord you pick out for some simple finger sandwiches, and those candies Anya won’t admit she likes.

It takes you a little over an hour to wander through the rest of the store, filling the remaining space in the basket with a few other things you need. Fancy fruit platters by the refrigerated section sidetrack you for longer than you’re willing to admit, along with a gift basket full of chocolate you contemplate buying for Clarke, but you put the both of them back where you found them.

You don’t need them and you leave it at that. It doesn’t make wanting them any less poignant, though.

 

* * *

 

The overhead lights are dim in the stairwell, but you’ve climbed them enough times to know not to stumble on that hitch in the third flight right before your floor. You step over it, switching the bag in your right hand to your left with the others so you can nudge open the door to the hall. The bags sway in your hand as you fish for the keys in your pocket, your attention focused on the balancing of weights, and as a result you don’t notice her. Not until the lights hit the blonde of her hair just right and it shines softly in the darkness down at the end of the hall.

Clarke sits with her back pressed up against your door, head facing away and resting sideways on her pulled up knees. Her coat is big and woolen, hands all but eaten by the largeness of her sleeves, fingers linked in front of her legs.

You don’t know what to say, but you’re drawn to the weariness of her--that whole body slouch that begins at the back of her head and inches down the line of her neck. The curve to her shoulders hangs, dips under an unseen weight, and you want to lift her gently back up by the tips of your fingers soft under her jaw. You stop a few feet away instead and the rustle of the plastic bags makes her flinch.

She looks at you and all that sadness that sits like a fog behind her eyes makes your heart bleed.

“Clarke.”

And that’s all it takes. Her eyes well and you can tell she hates it. She rubs the wool of her sleeve roughly across her nose, looking away as she does, but you’ve already seen enough and there’s nothing left she can try to hide. You place the bags down (jars clink and you think you hear something crush the chips), unwrapping the handles from your wrist and the weight lifts from your arm.

“Can I join you?” you ask,and you wait until you see that small nod to her head to sink down next to her. You bring yourself close, but careful enough that she doesn’t feel trapped, your shoulder brushing hers, and she looks so small curled around her knees.

 _Welcome back_ hangs in the roof of your mouth and that rush of warmth you’ve been missing returns, sinks into all the little spaces around your heart that had been cold from worry. She’s here with you now. Safe.

You can work with the rest.

“Do you like the color pink?” you find yourself asking and it’s partly just to fill the silence. You’re aching to touch her and you don’t want to cross a line.

Clarke shifts, switching cheeks to look at you past the mussed strands of hair curling in front of her face. The blue of her eyes seeps through the redness, though, and you’ll take whatever she’s willing to give.

“Aden wanted to know,” you add as an afterthought, watching her softly. Your left hand rests idle in the space between the two of you, unconsciously placed so that the edge of your pinky brushes against her coat. When you realize, you can’t help reaching those few centimeters, curling it into the fabric. It occurs to you that the hold is more for your own comfort than anything else.

“I’m so tired,” she says and her voice is hoarse and gravelly and so small. “I feel like the world is out to get me, and I just want it to tell me what I did wrong.”

“You can’t fix everything, Clarke.” Your eyes search her face, but she makes a point not to look at you. It twists your heart a little bit. “The world isn’t your weight to bear.”

She breathes out through her mouth and you can feel that she shakes with it. “But I made it worse.”

“You tried your best.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispers and that almost anger in her voice leaves you silent. You don’t know. After all, you’re still half buried in a love that has been dead for years. Maybe you’re scared of it. Still in love with it in some ways, probably. You know now there’s no replacing something like that. But Clarke. You’d fight for her. You’d bring the world down to its knees for her if she’d let you.

Your thumb brushes back and forth over the inch of coat held between your fingers. “No, I don’t,” you say after a moment and your voice has gone light with hesitance. “But I would like to.”

Clarke lower lip trembles as she inhales and her hand rises to press against the side of her face, hiding it from you. The shadows don’t hide everything, though, and you look away to allow her some small semblance of privacy. You pick at the withered pieces of grass clinging to your sneakers and flick them onto the speckled gray carpet.

You say nothing when Clarke wiggles her hand between your grasp of her coat a minute or two later, palm to palm, and you hold it tightly.

Her voice is quiet when she says, “You never told me you wore glasses.”

“That’s because I usually don’t,” you say, glancing at her out of the corner of your eye, watching as she pulls your linked hands towards her side.

“I like them.”

You smile softly at her. “Thanks.”

It takes you a moment to remember the groceries by your side and when you do you reach for them with your right, hooking all three of them around your hand. When you move to stand, Clarke’s head picks up to watch you, but she doesn’t let go. Her arm anchors her to you and you give her hand a reassuring squeeze.

She allows you to pull her up, and the moment you have to let go of her hand to resume your search for your keys, she takes the opportunity to wipe away the evidence still staining her cheeks with the heels of her hand. You give her time, filing lazily between the cluster of keys until you settle on the right one and slot it into the door. The lock unhooks with a twist of your wrist and you reach back for her after pocketing the keys again, shouldering open the door as best you can without the help of your hands.

It’s dark without the lights on, but you lead her inside and she follows step for step, sluggishly. You don’t need to see, though. The street lights that seep in through the curtained windows is enough to distinguish bits and pieces from one another until you manage to nudge the kitchen light on with your right elbow before setting the bags of groceries down on the kitchen island. You give your hand a little shake when you have everything settled, urging the blood back into your fingers.

You let Clarke decide when to let go this time and she does after a moment, standing there watching as you dig around the grocery bags. You set things down to be put away, organizing things in clusters, aware of the eyes on your back and then the faint shuffling as Clarke finally shucks off her coat. You glance back to see her with her eyes trained on her feet, coat folded over her arms.

“Can I borrow some clothes? I feel…” she trails off, head dipping. “I may have ran off without thinking and I. I don’t really… I’m not prepared.”

You fish out the last few items, placing them lightly on the island. You resist the urge to tell her that whatever is yours is hers. “There’s clean sweats and shirts in the middle drawer. Or feel free to use the shower if you want to wash up.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I don’t. Take whatever you like.”

She breathes in slowly, stuck in place, and looks up at you briefly before offering a small nod. “Thank you,” she says. It takes her a second to move, stepping forward to drape her coat over one of the island chairs.

“Can I make you anything?” you ask and she stops and pulls away, arms crossed over her stomach and her thumb rubbing circles over the fabric of her wrinkled shirt.

Clarke shakes her head, but she manages to tilt her lips into a what you think is a smile. “No, I’m good. Thank you.”

You return to putting away groceries when you hear the bathroom door close, packing things away in the cupboard and drawers. There’s not enough, not for two. Not unless you want to dig into tomorrow’s rations, and despite the way the thought of Clarke spending time here with you makes your heart beat thickly and your body feel as if it's made of air, it’s apparent you’re not prepared. For a lot of things, obviously. But what surprises you is that you can’t find it in you to be scared.

And yet, in some ways it also doesn’t.

By the time the water shuts off, you’re halfway through making a cup of tea. One of the last remaining tea bags steeps in a mug of water you heated up in the microwave while you put away the dishes in the sink one by one, and it's a minute or two more before the hinges of the bathroom door squeak and Clarke’s footsteps patter across the hall into your bedroom.

You’re adding a spoonful of honey when Clarke finally steps out into the kitchen again dressed in your clothes, running a hand through her damp hair. She starts at the crown of her head, tugging gently through the knots, and you find yourself swallowing around the feelings that lodge themselves in your throat. This damp patch collects on her right shoulder where the remaining moisture soaks into the fabric of your shirt and you don’t tell her there’s a comb in the drawer below the bathroom sink.

She takes a seat just as you finish your tea, bringing it to your lips for the first sip (It hasn’t tasted the same since that afternoon all those months ago. there’s something lacking, but you can never figure out what that is), and at the very least she looks refreshed despite the exhaustion that clings to the edges of her face.

You bring the mug away from your lips, resting it light in the palm of your hand as you watch her watch you. “You make it better,” you say.

Her head tilts a little bit, hair falling in strands over her shoulder, and she reaches out across the island. Wordlessly, you push the mug over to her and her fingers curl around the handle, pulling it towards herself. She holds the spoon still with her thumb as she lifts the edge of the mug to her mouth and takes that first taste, the steam curling in front of her face.

She sets the tea back down with a little sigh, fingers tensing and then releasing. “It tastes good to me.”

You let out a hum, your chest filling with warmth. “Then it's yours.”

“Lexa.”

“I can make myself another.”

Clarke’s eyes drop, a crease to her brow, but she keeps the mug close to her. You fish another mug out of the cupboard and start the process anew.

“You’re using the microwave?”

You glance over your shoulder and then back to the microwave, punching in two minutes. “Yes?”

Her disapproval is inherent in that miniscule twitch to edge of her mouth you catch when you turn back around. “You said you liked it,” you say, a light tease, the microwave humming in the background.

You see her pull a little smile, bringing the mug back to her mouth to take another sip. She holds it there though, the rim pressed to her bottom lip, and it takes you too long to realize she’s trying to hide. There’s an almost negligible tremor to her shoulders, the line of her neck tense and her knuckles going white with strain.

You want to help ease that edge she’s feeling and you have no idea how.

The microwave beeps, long and drawn out, and this time around the tears don’t stop and she doesn’t try wiping them away. Not that she can with the mug in her hands and you slip around to the other side of the island, taking the chair next to her and scooting as close as she’ll allow.

This isn’t about the tea, but you already know that, and your left hand hovers over her back until the weight becomes too much. She feels warm to the touch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She doesn’t say anything and you sigh softly through your nose, pushing your glasses back up while the other hand makes small circles on Clarke’s back. Anya never told you the reason for Clarke’s employment other than that she had the qualifications and was looking for something new. Maybe that was all there was to it. Maybe it wasn’t.

A hiccup causes her body to jump under your hand, jostling the tea, and she finally sets it down. For some reason you feel like telling her--about the hurt you carry in the marrow of your bones and the ache it creates in the empty spaces around your heart because there’s nowhere else to keep it. Not without losing it. You’ve come to terms with it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less, and you have a feeling she’d understand.

You’ve handled this before. Alone at first, stubbornly, and the pain built and built until it was holding you under. Anya lifted you back up by the scruff of your neck and you coughed everything back up until it hurt to breathe, but you were glad you could. With Clarke you can see the blood she tries to keep under her skin, you can see the pain she tries to bury, still fresh, still very real, and you want to tell her it will fade. It will hurt forever, but it will fade.

Admitting that Costia was gone would always be the hardest thing you’d ever have to do. So you didn’t. Not out loud. Not yet, but hopefully someday. You think with Clarke, maybe you can.

“It’s okay,” you say and you steel your voice around the weakness you feel--how seeing it written so clearly across the planes of Clarke’s face makes it hit alarmingly close to home. “You’re okay.”

Her breaths are these gasping things she tries to control and she turns in her seat to press her forehead against your shoulder, her fingers finding the edges of your sweater and hanging like dead weight. She pushes against you and you bear it, holding still and strong so that right now she doesn’t have to be. You know sometimes it’s nice not having to try.

You sit there until the sniffles come further and far between, when the counts of silence outweigh the small stuttering inhales and the normalcy weaves itself back into time with the rest of you.

And the time it takes is necessary, you understand, and you shift a little bit in your seat. Clarke moves with you, posture hunched and her grip tightening on your sweater and you keep still. It can’t be comfortable, but she doesn’t make a sound. Your hand rests at the small of her back, thumb passing slowly back and forth across the dip of her spine, and you think maybe the weight of the world is holding her here with you.

“I ran away, you know,” she says and her voice is cracked and wet. “Things got hard and I ran. _I ran_.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.” The side of your head bumps gently against hers. “Sometimes that’s how we survive.”

She sniffs, and you shift to reach out across the island for a stray napkin. You hold it out for her, waiting as she lets go your sweater to take it from you before your hand falls back to your lap. She blows into it, folding it over and over until what’s left is this crumpled, used-up ball that she curls into her fist.

“It sucks,” she says.

“I know.” You breathe in; exhale. “I know.” God do you know.

It’s long unhurried minutes before either one of you moves. Clarke shifts next to you and you can see her fight to keep herself upright and awake as the exhaustion settles in. You nudge her thigh, getting her attention, and she looks up from her lap and the napkin crumpled in her hands.

“You should rest, Clarke.”

She nods silently, handing over the napkin when you hold out your hand, and you get up to go throw it away. You clean up your mess while you’re at it, tossing the empty box in the recycling and the rest of lukewarm tea and dirty spoon in the sink before turning around. Clarke’s still slumped in her seat, so you make your way around again and tug lightly on her sleeve. “C’mon, I’ll help you get set up.”

“I can take the couch,” she says and you roll your eyes.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch.”

She frowns at that and it's like she wants to dig in her heels and be stubborn, but she stops herself and breathes out: “I don’t want to bother you.”

“You’re not bothering me,” you say, your voice soft, and you quirk your lips in a small smile. “In fact I would appreciate it if you’d bother me more often.”

You know she’s more than capable, but you help her up from her seat, and you take a moment to brush your thumbs over her cheeks and under her eyes, wiping away the wet streaks that still remain. She lets you dote, docile, following you to the bathroom and waiting as you pull a spare toothbrush from the drawer and washcloth from the cabinet and she brushes her teeth and washes her face while you strip your bed to put on cleaner sheets.

She’s by the door when you finish, a few steps from the threshold. You smooth out the covers one last time. “Just let me grab a change of clothes and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“You can stay,” she says hesitantly and you still, glancing over your shoulder to see Clarke shift from one foot to the other. The light from the kitchen stretches shadows out in thin strings, makes her look sallow in your gangly clothes.

“Do you want me to?”

Her head lifts and falls in this barely conceived movement and you straighten, half turned towards her.

“Clarke.”

“Please," she breathes out and you breathe in.

“Okay.”

You pick out some loose bed-pants from your bureau and when you pass by her in the hall on your way to the bathroom to change you bump into her on purpose. Shoulder against shoulder, pushing her into your room. Her mouth twists into this tiny wayward smile.

“Make yourself at home,” you say. “I’ll be right back.”

You make you’re way through the kitchen first, taking off your shoes and turning off the lights, before slipping into the bathroom to change. You forget about your glasses, tugging the sweater over your head in one motion and nearly knocking them clear off your face, but you catch them before they meet the tile floor. It takes a second to push them back into place while your other hand tries unhooking your bra without bothering to take off your t-shirt, worming out of the straps once you manage and then pulling it out from under. The baggy bed-pants offer less of a challenge and you hop into them one leg at a time.

When you tiptoe back into your room it's quiet and you try not to glance over at the bed as you place your folded clothes on your bureau. But you can’t stay away for long.

You slip off your glasses with hesitant fingers, placing the frames on the nightstand by your bed, and the clarity slips away like a lens. Shapes lose their outline, merging and melting to the point where picking apart Clarke among the blankets and sheets is a nigh impossibility in the dark. Tendrils of her hair give her away though and based on familiarity alone you can tell she’s claimed the left side of your bed for herself.

Slipping beneath the covers is a certain kind of anxiety you’re wholly unprepared for. It’s one thing to wake up disoriented and comfortable, already submerged, it's another to dive in head first. The obscurity helps as much as it hinders, though, and after a moment of standing awkwardly by the edge of your mattress, you crawl into bed with her.

The bed creaks quietly with the added weight as you pull aside the covers and settle in. It’s already warm and as you shift and adjust, you’re all too aware of the body next to you. You can’t see her, but it smells like her, and when you finally still, you feel her tentatively search for you in the dark.

Her right hand finds the edge of your shirt and her cold toes come into contact with your shins for only a moment before she jerks them away. “Sorry,” she mumbles, but you exhale through your nose and shake your head, eyes already closed. Her grip tightens and you scoot closer, her feet tucking themselves between yours.

The silence is heavy and you let it be. The rustle of sheets and those quiet sniffles she fights off--you sink into it, welcoming the peace it brings and the little puffs of breath that fan across your jaw. How it’s like something has clicked into place with you and you can’t remember the last time you felt this calm--this at ease in your own mind.

How nice it feels to be.

 

* * *

 

“You’re canceling?”

The late morning light streams in past the curtains. It stumbles over the couch and across the wood floors until the last of the shadows skitters away into the far corners of your kitchen. Not much has changed since last night and yet in some unfathomable way it feels like it has. “Something came up.”

“Something came up?” Anya parrots, but her voice tapers off and the realization is as loud as if she were here next to you. “It’s Clarke, isn’t it.”

You push your glasses further up your nose, letting your weight rest against the counter. The full coffee pot blinks imploringly at you from it's corner near the sink, but the cup you have yet to fish out from the cupboard is low on your list of priorities.

And then, after a beat, “What am I supposed to do with all this beer?”

Your lips split into a smile. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

It earns you a small chuckle from across the line. “How is she, though? Is she okay?”

“She’s... good,” is all you feel like you can offer. You rolled out of bed around eight o’clock still half asleep, but Clarke hadn’t budged an inch from where she was wrapped up in your blankets. You felt it was best to let her have this moment of peace. “I’m not…” you stop. “I’ll have her give you a call when she’s all set.”

“Tell her there’s no rush. We can handle ourselves for a little while longer.”

You trail a finger idly across the counter-top when the dull sound of bare feet travels across the air and your smile softens. The sound comes to a halt behind you, but you don’t turn around. “I’ll be sure to let her know.”

An arm snakes around your waist, then another, and they hold you tight, her forehead finding its place at the back of your neck.

“I’ll see you monday, then?” Anya’s voice says in your ear.

“Monday,” you repeat with a small nod of your head, only half listening, the tips of your fingers finding the back of Clarke’s hands.

“Take care, kid.”

“You too,” you say and then she hangs up.

There’s a quiet hum in the air. It mixes with the early bustle of cars on the street below, between the shuffle of feet on your floor, and the sound of Clarke’s breath muffled by your back.

“Can I get you some coffee?”

She shakes her head and your shirt shifts. “Thank you,” she says, her voice soft against your back.

You glance over your shoulder. “For the coffee?”

“For a lot of things.”

You look ahead again and you feel her arms hold you tightly. “Anytime.”

 

* * *

 

That Saturday is the kind of slow you’ve always hoped for. It lasts, settles itself in the space between you and stretches. You set Clarke up on the couch with a couple of blankets, a pile of pillows, and a hot drink as you wander about your apartment finding things to do in lieu of the work you should be doing. It gets done, though, little by little when you’re able to manage the concentration required--when you convince yourself Clarke is quite content dozing through cheesy lifetime movies on your couch and would let you know otherwise. Though, you learn, perhaps not quite content enough to hold her attention.

She seeks you out and it's a natural high. How your heart swells with the feeling the moment she presses in close next to you, watching you brainstorm new ideas and educational games for the kids. The tv drawls in the background, but you don’t hear it. You hang onto Clarke’s every word despite the sparseness of them--those little questions she asks and the suggestions she makes. How she’ll press her mouth to your shoulder, brows scrunched as she thinks and you can’t think of anything as beautiful as her in that moment.

You find her a pencil when you’re certain she’s here to stay and soon there’s doodles growing in the margins of your papers. Little rocketships and aliens and twinkling stars spread across printed galaxies.

You make finger sandwiches and the last of the tea as a late lunch sometime around three o’clock as the grumble of both your stomachs becomes too loud to ignore. A bowl of chips and a little dish of salsa makes a good a side as any and the second they’re gone you pour more.

It's the moment she dozes off on your shoulder later that evening that you understand something is different, that the elephant in the room is more of a mouse and you know Clarke hasn’t chosen to ignore it. Rather, it’s as if the knowledge it exists where you both can see it makes it that much easier to deal with. It helps you both.

The tiredness of these last few days seems to hit her all at once and she doesn’t wake when you slip your arms around her and lift her gently off the couch. She’s heavier than the kids, but it's nothing you can’t handle. Her head rests under your chin, forehead tucked against your neck, her exhales these little puffs across your collar.

You have to wrestle a fistful of your shirt from her grasp when you finally set her down in your bed, nearly toppling over into it with her, but once you’re free all she does is turn over, pulling the blankets with her as she goes, and after a second you wander back out to the kitchen.

There’s a small mess on the island you take a moment to clean that consists of an empty bag of chips you throw away, plates you place quietly in the sink for tomorrow, and a stack of scribbled-on papers you store inside the cover of your work binder. You plop yourself down on the couch after it's all taken care of, lazily flipping through channels as you wait for the exhaustion to creep in.

Which it does--halfway through some late night documentary about stars and interstellar travel--but it doesn’t last. You blink open weary eyes a few hours later the second the couch dips as Clarke’s hands brace against the cushions. She crawls over you, squeezing into the space between you and the back of the couch. You have a feeling she’s trying to be discreet and failing miserably at it.

She wiggles to get comfortable and you sleepily roll over, nudging your nose under her cheek. 

“Everything alright?” Your voice is heavy with sleep and it's a miracle she can make out the words. She mumbles her acknowledgement with a tired hum though, eyes already closed and her feet touching yours. 

It’s easier to fall asleep with her here, with your arm lazily thrown across her hip and her hair a mess around you. Her fingers peek from the sleeves of one of your sweaters, hovering just over the waistband of your sweatpants and the warmth she wants to steal. And she does the moment she’s too far gone to think clearly, a little bit hazy and looking for something to hold on to.

You figure you both are.

 

* * *

 

You ask her if she would like to stay that following Sunday morning over breakfast. It leaves your mouth without much thought, stumbles over onto the eggs and sizzles in the silence that follows. Waking up next to her, squished together on your couch with her hands warm tucked under the hem of your shirt, quelled whatever hesitations you still had. That doesn’t make it any less intimidating or the hope swelling in your chest any less maddening.

She says yes.

 

* * *

 

Monday she doesn’t go to work with you and you don’t ask her why. She wakes up with you, watches you as you pack your things and straighten out your clothes, a mug wrapped up in her hands and still a bit sleepy eyed, but makes no move to follow.

You come home to her sitting out on the veranda with the pad of paper you found her yesterday and a pencil she’s whittled down to nothing more than a nub. She hears you drop your keys on the marble countertop, twisting in place to look at you before maneuvering herself to her feet. Her face is a little flushed from the briskness of early spring, but she smiles and you feel alive.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hi,” you say back and it's a sigh. You realize now that you were scared. A little bit. That she’d leave and you’d let her. She owes you nothing and that’s exactly how you want it to be.

It’s the same on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. Thursday comes and goes in the blink of an eye and on Friday, when the aches and the pains of the work week catch up to you and you lie half spaced out on the couch--on friday Clarke asks about the kids.

It's roundabout in a way, how she doesn’t quite look at you while she waits for you to answer. Like she doesn’t deserve to know after the way she left and can’t figure out how to return. So you give her a little push.

“Sam’s really excited about the zoo,” you say to the ceiling and you see Clarke tense out of the corner of your eye from her spot on the floor in front of the couch, pencils and things spread out over the coffee table. “She’s asked me to read the animal encyclopedia we have at least four times.”

You let out a small laugh and Clarke turns to you, curious and open. “She wants to be prepared,” you explain.

You fold your arms over your stomach and this contented hum fills your chest, fingers drumming as you think. “And Roger found a rather impressive bug out on the playground a few days ago. It lives in a jar on our desk.”

She squints her eyes at you.

“It was a rather impressive bug, Clarke.” Your lips quirk when Clarke looks away, exasperated but nearly smiling. And then, after a second. “I’ll let it go.”

You tell her about Jenna and Temple and the little bracelets you showed them how to make and how they don’t take them off, each other’s handiwork wrapped around their wrists. You tell her that Amav’s little sister was born the first week of March and all he talks about is her. How her hands are small and she’s a little lumpy but her smile is wide and she laughs at his jokes and he’s going to be the best big brother there ever was.

The tension in her shoulders lessens the longer you talk, inch by inch, and she lets herself rest against the couch. There’s a little sideways tilt to her head as if to tell you she’s still listening, even when she lets her head fall back against the side of your leg that hangs off the couch, her hair swept aside and highlighting the gentle curve of her profile. You get lost looking at her, in the little wisps of blonde near her temple, the pink of her lips and the line of her neck that disappears beneath one of your shirts, and you don’t know you’ve taken too long until she decides to speak up herself.

“And Aden?”

Her eyes dart to you and you can feel the smile you hold back in the apple of your cheeks. “I’ve fooled him into thinking I can draw.”

Her eyes widen. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t lie,” you say and she actually smiles this time, shaking her head a little bit before staring up at the ceiling. “You should come back... When you’re ready. They’d be happy to see you.”

She doesn’t say anything right away, the colored pencil motionless in her hand.

“Maybe.”

And that’s enough for now.

 

* * *

 

Before you know it it’s Monday morning again and you spend more time than usual in bed watching the pale light play across your bedroom wall, your phone alarm silenced before it even had the chance to ring. Clarke’s nose is pressed against your neck, knees lining up perfectly behind yours, and you try not to move.

You stay for ten before you manage the wherewithal to move, the sun a present threat as its light signals a warning through your window. Legs shift and sheets untangle and you pull yourself from the bed as discreetly as you can, Clarke’s hand falling from your waist with a soft thump onto the mattress.

You grab the outfit you set aside last night on your bureau and slip into the bathroom across the hall, stripping away clothes and the last of sleep. The shower wakes you up more than coffee, but you still brew a small cup after you’re done, wandering around your kitchen with a mug clasped between both your hands as your hair dries. You gather wayward papers strewn between the island and the coffee table, organizing them until all that’s left is the quietness and you.

And Clarke.

It’s not sneaking, you hear her tired shuffle to the bathroom before you see her wander into the kitchen a few minutes later. She’s quiet though, in that still dazed and unintentional way, and she catches you with your fingers woven through your hair as you try and wrestle it into some form of submission in its semi-dry state. You grin around the elastic held between your teeth and she smiles wryly back at you.

“Coffee?” you ask, plucking the obstruction from your mouth and twisting it around your hair a few times in a half bun. Everything stays more or less in place when you let go. “I’m about to head out.”

“I’m good,” she says, rubbing her eye with a fist.

You nod, picking up your things from the island and stuffing them into your bag along with your lunch and the dozen or so containers of kid-safe playdough you and Clarke made last night out of some flour, salt, and a few other things. You also snatch an apple from the counter on your way to the door that you’ll eat in the car. You’ll still be hungry by nine, but Anya keeps a package of wafer cookies ‘hidden’ in her desk drawer that she thinks you don’t know about.

Clarke follows you, stands idly by as you wriggle your feet into your shoes, giving a few taps of your toes and making sure the back isn’t tucked under.

She kisses you before you leave, just by the door. It misses your cheek (or your lips, you’re not quite sure) and lands off to the side of your mouth. You think you’re still dreaming, the touch soft, more like she’s simply sharing her space with you than anything else and it lingers like a ghost on your skin.

“I’ll catch you later,” she mutters and it's been awhile so you can’t resist leaning in again, placing your lips gently over her own. She lets out this little hum that lingers in her throat and you have to drag yourself away before you end up late for work.

(You get stuck in a daze in the residential parking lot anyway, keys still in your hands as you sit in the driver’s seat, thinking about her lips and her smile. The good news is you’re only five minutes late and the halls are still empty)

The morning goes by fast. A few kids are absent and you spend the first hour or so in the playroom for a bit of free play until it's time to round the kids for circle time. It begins typically, with questions about their weekends, but with the trip to the zoo a little less than a month away, it’s all very animal orientated. Over the weekend you had them all pick out their favorites and you grab the globe from its place on the bookshelf, finding a spot on the floor with them, shoulders relaxed from their usual rigidness, and you go through one by one. You give them hints and have them guess where, making a game of it, and things are broad and easy to understand and they like it. Or at least it seems like they do and you’ll take it.

You take a break for morning snacks and a group trip to the bathroom. Anya joins you so the chaos out in the hall is at least somewhat manageable, volleying between Tris’ room to keep an eye on the kids you can’t. The kids are happy to see her, like the rough and tumble aunt that visits once in a blue moon, and she plays it up for all it’s worth--sneaking in tickles when the kids aren’t looking. Chaos never really settles when she’s around and it's nice.

She hovers until you have things set up for the day’s activity and everyone is--for the most part (Roger seems more content to stack his little multicolored containers of playdough than actually use them)--focused.

And it stays that way. Through the hour of crafts and playdough molding and then another hour of physical activity outdoors. Lunch leaves you trying to catch your breath and you’re thankful that with food in their bellies, they’re out in minutes, curled up with stuffed animals and beneath piles of blankets.

The silence is a welcome reprieve and you pick at your raviolis with vague interest. You keep an ear open for any sign of discomfort, but their breaths are even despite the occasional snore. It makes the quiet knock on your door then seem loud by comparison and you push aside the tupperware of ravioli, standing from your chair. You make it halfway across the room, tiptoeing around the bundles on the floor, before the door opens and Clarke invites herself in.

It’s almost a bit odd seeing her here after the near month she’s been gone and the way she looks around the room you can tell she feels it too somehow. But that doesn’t stop her. She powers through, strong and full of courage, like you’ve always known her to be. How she wields it subtly but surely in each step as she wanders closer to you and you feel--here and now, in some other world, some other universe--you’d drop to your knees for her.

She meets you by the cubbies in the corner of the room, attention captured by the piles on the floor, and you’re more than happy to wait if it means watching that smile unfold.

When she finally does look at you, you smile back at her. “Welcome back.”

Her head dips, a little sheepish. “It’s good to be back.”

“Are you staying?”

She nods. “Yeah. Yeah I think so.”

Nothing really prepares you for the initial reaction. Sam wakes up first, rubbing tiredly at her eyes as she sits up, her pink elephant, Mini, tumbling from the cocoon of blankets and onto the floor. She reaches for it, a little hand catching hold of a leg, but she stops and stares, eyes wide and disbelieving.

Sam’s up in an instant, her rush to stand hindered by the blankets she finds herself wrapped in, but she manages, stumbling over to where you and Clarke have taken up space by the kids table. The ruckus is loud, Sam’s feet this uneven patter, and the rest of the kids rouse involuntarily from sleep. They’re groggy and you hear Jack’s protests at being awake earlier than necessary, but the second they notice--the second they see blue eyes and blonde hair they can’t find it in themselves to care.

They’re a lot like you in that regard.

You’re sidelined for the moment and you don’t mind. There’s a subtle sheen to Clarke’s eyes as the kids crowd around her, filling with a thin layer of tears she admirably tries to fight off. If anything, they’re happy tears, made of the kind of relief that comes after too long of holding oneself back. It’s something Clarke deserves more than anything and sometimes it takes a group of kids yelling that they missed you for it to sink in.

That despite the shittiness of life, sometimes it's the small things that pick you back up.

The day unravels after that, your plans all but discarded in favor of Clarke and you’re content to let it happen. They vie for her attention, tiny hands permanently attached to her sleeve, and it’s hard for her to focus on one before being tugged toward another. You try to alleviate some of the pressure, reign in the chaos to something much more manageable for the two of you and it works to an extent. You only have to make it through an hour before the parents start to trickle in and with things back the way they should be it goes by quickly.

Aden is all that’s left by four o’clock and he hasn’t let go of Clarke’s fingers since he had managed to secure them half an hour ago. He’s right handed like you and you want to laugh at the familiarity of the situation as Aden tries to work around that fact without letting go of Clarke’s hand. He tugs her over to his cubby, digging through his pint-sized backpack with his left hand. You have a feeling you know what he’s looking for, and you’re proven right when he pulls out a slightly crinkled yet colorful piece of paper and holds it up to her proudly.

“For me?” she asks, taking the paper gently.

Aden nods enthusiastically. “Lexa helped,” he says and Clarke looks at you curiously.

“Honorary color consultant,” is all you say. She laughs.

There’s such an outward expression of affection on Clarke’s face as she takes it all in, the colors and the spontaneity of it all. “It’s amazing.” She glances at him before returning her attention to the paper. “Thank you so much.”

Aden’s smile only grows, but he’s hit with a sudden case of bashfulness and can’t seem to look her in the eyes.

“He’s going to be as good as you one day,” you say.

Clarke’s lips curl, watching as Aden swings their connected arms. “I bet.”

Aden makes her promise to come back tomorrow before he leaves and Clarke pinky swears. He doesn’t understand it, not until she explains what it means, but that’s all it takes.

You don’t ask if she’s returning home with you. It’s just something you let play out on its own. You go through the motions, work around one another as you put things back where they belong and set things up for tomorrow, and when the time comes to leave she falls into step next to you.

Her shoulder bumps yours the entire way to your car and it makes you forget to ask how she got here. You think of her hand in yours and you ask her what she wants for dinner, watching her pull her bottom lip between her teeth as she thinks. You wonder what the two of you look like wandering through the supermarket by your apartment, a basket on your arm that Clarke stuffs full with what she describes as ‘the necessities’. What you see is a bit of fruit and chocolate dip and a box of lasagna hamburger helper mixed in with a few other things. It all looks good to you.

“I’m glad you came,” you say, soft, as the both of you stand in line at the register.

She leans into you, her head falling to your shoulder. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner is a joint effort. After you get comfy (the both of you clean and in sweats and old shirts) you have the box on the counter next to the stove, reading ahead while the hamburger cooks slowly in a frying pan. Next to you Clarke does what she can with leftover lettuce in the fridge, mixing it together in a bowl with some cherry tomatoes and a diced up purple onion you didn’t know had made it into the basket.

Clarke cuts the pieces really small when she notices the faint look of disgust on your face, checking you lightly with her hip. “You won’t even notice them.”

(she had said and you didn’t)

The hamburger sizzles, the television a vague distraction behind you, and you let her get away with it. You dig through the box with your left hand, picking out the packet of seasonings and adding it to the mix, and it’s all straightforward from there. While everything simmers, Clarke goes about digging for the silverware and plates from the cupboards and drawers, organizing them neatly on the island.

She knows her way around, reaching for things and knowing exactly where to find them. An assuredness that had been so absent from her that it's presence makes you want to press in close to her and stay there. In the warmth she seems to forget she has and it's a goddamn tragedy--for you to see it so clearly that it aches.

That she looks at you sometimes and it's like she’s seen something wholly magnificent. You make sure you’re looking right back.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks when she catches you staring. There’s a subtle furrow to her brow and it’s like she’s studying you, trying to put all the pieces of you together in her head.

You turn away to take the pan off the burner, shutting it off, but out of the corner of your eye you see her. “You,” you say with a small shrug and it's really as simple as that.

So when you kiss her right there in your kitchen after dinner it seems inevitable. Unavoidable. Like fate and destiny mixed up in a blender so that her lips feel like home and taste like home. You orbit around each other like planets in a system and it’s an insatiable thing--that want be closer. As if you were meant for that collide and you don’t want to look away. “Clarke?”

She moves into you, your foreheads bumping together, and nods. You press yourself flush with her and you can feel the calculated breath she inhales and then loses into your mouth. It's a tide you’re all too eager to sink into, slow and unhurried, and you could count the moments between each inhale on one hand, but you don’t. You count each kiss, each lazy and prolonged touch of lips against yours, and you want to be stuck there forever.

You don’t notice Clarke’s fingers playing at the hem of your shirt until she’s pulling away to tug it up and over your head, fingers trailing across the sides of your ribs as she goes. Your shirt gets lost somewhere on the kitchen floor and your skin prickles at the sudden rush of air against your bare skin, hair settling messily over your shoulders, but there’s a quick and easy fix in front of you and she welcomes you back greedily.

Clarke’s warm for once, or maybe you’re just cold and the difference is negligible. All you want is to be close, too busy chasing her lips, so you let her push you, let her pinch and tickle and tug you where she wants you. She bumps into a chair, accidentally steers the both of you into the inch of counter that sticks out a bit by the wall, and a few seconds later your heel catches the edge of the doorframe to your room and you stumble backwards a step. She catches you though, wrapping an arm around your waist at the last second, hand splayed out over your back, and laughs.

The back of your knees hits the edge of your bed before you’re ready and your grip on her shirt is the only thing that keeps you from falling backward. It pulls her forward, settles her snugly between your legs, and when you look up at her, blue eyes and swollen pinks lips and tousled hair, it’s as if you can’t breathe.

“Nice tattoo,” she says, her lips this playful grin.

All the air gets caught in your throat. It feels like you’re drowning. “Can I kiss you?” you say.

She leans forward and into your space, hands braced on either side of your thighs. “Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

You just want her closer. “ _Clarke_.”

“ _Lexa_ ,” she teases, her lips brushing your cheek. “You don’t--” she moves to kiss you and you're swallowed up in the feel of it. “--have to ask.”

“I want to,” you say the moment she pulls away, snatching your thoughts before they drift out of your reach. Your breath is shaky over her lips, close to desperate, and it's a miracle you’re still able to form words.

She kisses you again and you both sink into it, your hands on her waist, toying with the edge of her shirt, and hers move to cup your cheeks. You exhale in the vacant spaces and they’re these measured things you take when you can, but you forget how to the second she covers your hands with hers. She helps you take off her shirt and each inch of skin you find is what the tips of your fingers were made for.

Guiltily, your eyes get caught in the space between her breasts for a second (maybe two) before lowering, and it’s only an instant, but her stomach is soft and curved and it’s maybe one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” she says immediately and your ears and cheeks and neck feel hot as you swallow down the words that threaten to spill from your mouth, your tongue heavy. Her hands push you and you go along willingly, pressed into the sheets of your bed. Clarke follows, stomach and breasts flush against you, her lips drifting lazily across the line of your jaw, pressing here and there but they're never to far away for a quick detour to your lips. Your fingers find the dip of her spine, sliding down and slipping beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. You give a subtle pull and Clarke moves with it, her hips pushing into you.

Your breath hitches in your throat and hangs there, crawling out in a groan and Clarke laughs, moving to kiss you properly.

Breathing only seems possible when she’s kissing you.

 

* * *

 

The night is quiet and it’s the kind of in-between you’d call a dream, but you’re not sleeping. You don’t want to. Your eyes are closed though, or just barely open where the light doesn’t register against the darkness eclipsed by Clarke’s skin. Beneath the sheets your legs are a tangle and the hand splayed on your waist moves subtly back and forth in random patterns despite the unconsciousness that has taken hold.

Her other arm is twined with yours, her hand held hostage close to your mouth so you don’t have far to go to press your lips to the back of her knuckles. Which you do. Often. If only to get her to grumble sleepily, lips ghosting over your forehead, breath scattering in light indignant huffs.

Clarke squeezes your hand and then releases, nuzzling her nose into your hair and letting out this long sigh. She mumbles something you can’t quite make out and all the love you feel in that moment is as terrifying as it is relieving.

Because you remember. You remember thinking love just wasn’t meant for you. Like it was a quota you had filled prematurely and lost and didn’t deserve to get back (that it was your fault and there are no second chances). But love isn’t something you can run out of. Especially not you and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It rests fervently. As a storm in the pit of your stomach, an itch in the middle of your back and the inside of your wrists. You have so much of it and it threatens to bleed. Your mouth aches with it, but it simmers and cools, the burn a comfortable warmth under your skin. God. You love her. You love her, you love her--

_I love you._

Or that’s what you would say, quiet and unintelligible, but the weight of it fills the space in front of you, and when she stirs you tense, holding your breath. Her hand lifts from your waist and you shift to watch the familiar scrunch to her face as she rubs her nose before wrapping her arm around your waist, pulling you in, and there’s no space left for anything besides you.

 

* * *

 

That Friday is the last in March and that means it's movie day. The kids have been looking forward to this since the beginning of the week and you’re sure Clarke has her hands full as they begin to wake up from their naps. You pull down the projector screen in the playroom after gathering the extra beanbags and blankets from your classroom and piling them in the middle of the room for the kids. You know she can handle it though.

She joins you just as you’re loading the movie into the player, ushering the group of somewhat groggy children clutching extra pillows into the room. She glances at you and your heart flips, her mouth this happy curl as she urges the last kid in with a hand soft on their back.

The player makes that familiar click and you step back, stuffing the remote in your back pocket before you help Clarke make sure the kids are situated and comfortable. The dvd filters through the previews, the kids already unblinking in their concentration, but you ask if there’s anything they need and the resounding answer is no. You fall back to turn off the lights, plucking the remote from your pocket and pressing play before plunging the room in semi-darkness, the afternoon light seeping in through the blinds.

For a moment you stand sentinel, content in watching the kids snuggle in their blankets, eyes focused on the screen. Out of the corner of your eye Clarke grabs a few of the extra, unused blankets and pillows and makes her way over to you. You only move when Clarke tugs your sleeve and you follow her to the back of the room where she pulls you down next to her, spreading the blankets over your laps and then tucking herself in close.

“You know,” she says, a whisper, the opening scene coloring the room. “I’ve never seen Winnie the Pooh.”

“Well then, you’re in for a treat,” you whisper back, your mouth against her temple. She chuckles, low, her voice stuck in her throat, and you smile against her skin.

An arm slips around your back. “Am I?” Clarke’s chin finds your shoulder and you pull away to look at her better.

“It’s one of my favorites,” you say.

“That’s high praise.”

“And more than well placed.”

You remember the first time you saw it out in theaters five years ago because Costia loved Pooh--because it reminded her of you--and the memory doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.

It’s different now. They say time heals and to an extent you find it does. Memories dull and grow fuzzy and you think that maybe it's the mind’s way of softening the blow. That it's okay. They pile over, get buried. By better things, brighter things, so that when you dig through all the remains you’ve been too scared to before, it's not as hard to look at them.

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she says, humoring you.

“For a lot of things,” you respond, nudging the side of her head with the tip of your nose.

You see her smile inch up, a gentle curl to her lips, and it makes your heart melt. You feel it like a disease, how it spreads until it consumes you whole. You can’t help it.

“I love you,” you whisper and it’s such a relief.

A moment passes and the blankets rustle as she finds your hand under the covers and tugs it into her lap crushed between both of hers. You can’t see her face, but you see the tips of her ears (red) and the kiss she presses to your shoulder a second later.

“I love you, too.”

 

* * *

 

The first thing you feel on that sunny Saturday afternoon in the middle of April is her thumbs hooking around the waistline of your jeans, pulling your hips closer until you’re flush with her. It’s anything but discreet, but she hesitates just before your lips meet, head tilted, mouth parted, hair falling over her shoulder, and you think that, maybe, it’s not just you falling too fast.

She lets out a laugh, this short breathy thing, and you watch her eyes flick down to your lips and get caught there. Like a tug, you think, and you feel yourself already dipping, pressing the tip of your nose to hers. The seconds stretch and the world bleeds, the colors beyond her blurring to splotches, and you don’t have to wait long.

But you would for her. There’s no question.

Clarke takes your lips like she’s drawing the stars from your lungs. Gently, but with purpose, teeth ever so slightly making their presence known as she nips, once, at your bottom lip before her mouth dissolves into a smile. You feel it–-that rush of breath high in your throat, the tinglyness that spreads through you, and you want to feel it all over again.

And you do, for a moment. All softness as you push forward, foreheads together, noses squished, and her hands sneaking their way under your shirt–-cold--and you couldn’t care less.

But it stops as abruptly as it starts and the only warning is Clarke’s muffled squeak as she startles. Her face finds an immediate home in the crook of your neck, her groan exasperated. And perhaps a little embarrassed, especially when you’ve finally gathered enough of your wits to notice the small child attached to her leg. It’s only one step more, then, before you see Anya across the way just past the entrance to the zoo, arms crossed, eyebrow quirked, and a gaggle of children in matching hats and tiny jackets gathered around her.

Later, when the embarrassment has died down (the moment perhaps forgotten), you stand beside Anya just off to the side of the penguin enclosure, watching the children and–to a lesser extent–Clarke press their faces against the plexiglass. Well, Anya is watching the children. You’re watching her.

“Three minutes,” Anya says without looking at you, a drone to her voice. “Didn’t even make it across the parking lot.”

The corner of your lips curl and you shrug, but you can’t take your eyes off her.


End file.
